


Starless

by adastra615



Category: The Lion King (1994)
Genre: Angst, Blood, Father-Daughter Relationship, Fighting, Gen, an attempt at redemption, lots of lion introspection, scar being his manipulative self
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-26 13:53:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 54,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2654390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/adastra615/pseuds/adastra615
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were no stars. He twisted around, the heat burrowing into his pelt. No stars. The great kings weren't watching. Mufasa couldn't see. His father couldn't see. The smoke obscured everything. Simba stood above him, his teeth a tear of white against his golden fur. He didn't understand what he felt in that moment- a singular strange entity among the bevy of emotions that refused to resonate. Only later would that small rumble would be perceived. The damage would spread in deep cracks and ravines throughout him, resurfacing everything he had ever known.</p>
<p>Or Scar gets a second chance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Simba's claws retracted from Scar's shoulders, and sent him flailing into the darkness. In that moment, the smallest regret filled his darkened heart and rippled outwards through his core like a tremor. He clawed at the sudden night in front of him.

There were no stars. He twisted around, the heat burrowing into his pelt. No stars. The great kings weren't watching. Mufasa couldn't see. His father couldn't see. The smoke obscured everything. Simba stood above him, his teeth a tear of white against his golden fur. He didn't understand what he felt in that moment- a singular strange entity among the bevy of emotions that refused to resonate. Only later would that small rumble would be perceived. The damage would spread in deep cracks and ravines throughout him, resurfacing everything he had ever known.

Hissing and howling rose from below him. Fire tore through the bracken and waste. His pride stood above him, rows upon rows of lions- deep gashes of fanged grins. Simba stood in front. Everything rushed forward in a spray of grays and blues, and reds as he collided with the dirt.

He gasped for air. With broken slowness he stood. The growls seemed like ghosts in the darkness; a whisper in the void. To his left. To his right. A branch snapped as the hyenas emerged from the smoke, their coats caked in blood and dust from the fighting.

"Ah my friends," he said. Fire glinted against their nails. Fighting Simba earlier had exhausted him, left the muscles in his shoulders trembling, but he stood and willed his stance to evoke authority. They still belonged to him. He didn't want to fight, but the fire was encroaching. The smoke stung his eyes. The whispered growls and threats saturated the air as thick as the coming rain. Thunder rolled somewhere above, and he looked upwards. Still no stars. Shenzi, her eyes red beads in the glow, stepped forward.

"I thought he said we were the enemy," she said.

His army comprised of shining teeth, and rending claws came to surround him. His heart stammered. He bared his teeth and claws. He was authority. He was their king. His backs legs quivered. He didn't want to acknowledge that it was anything more than exhaustion. He backed up, his tail brushing against the sheer rock wall behind him. He fumbled for words, more lost than he'd ever felt, his wit, his logic, his planning failing him at last, and all he could utter was no, no, no, you don't understand. Let me explain.

But there was nothing to explain. Everything had gone to hell, much too quickly, and his thoughts gave way to fear and rooted him to the spot. The flames and smoke rose high into the air. The sky opened and he could see through the smoke a starless sky, empty of its great kings. He knew that in death he would be obliterated.

Hot breath pushed against his face, stinking of rotting meat and decay. The abyss of darkness before him was so completely quiet, like the sky that the clouds once again swallowed. The shaking of his limbs, the burn across his face where Simba's paw had hit him, the dirt against his paw, the raw fire burning his flank, he wanted it all. He wanted more than utter calm and oblivion. He prospered in blood, and pain, in uncertainty. In himself. To lose it all to that golden king who stood above him cheering his death, his brother's son brought back from the dead and that these hyenas had failed to kill, was too much.

His skin boiled as if his fur had caught fire, and a sharp pain deep in his shoulder bit at his ire as the first hyena lunged. The world turned red, and he ripped into his attacker. His claws tore through flesh, and snapped bones. He beat them off. He tasted blood. He smelled it in the air, and all around him there was whimpering as they fell at his feet. The first rain drops sputtered from the sky, and the fire sizzled and popped around him, angry and enflamed, fighting an enemy sure to snuff it out.

His teeth dug into another throat. A sharp stab to his back leg and a snap almost brought him to the ground. He clawed his attacker, the hyena's teeth sunken into the muscle of his leg, and sent the whimpering beast running. But they continued to emerge. They'd never be able to say he lacked tenacity.

If he could get to Shenzi he could make them stop, but they flitted though the darkness and the smoke like shadows. His senses were dulled by it, but he knew her scent. She had been his go-between.

He lurched through the hyenas, and caught her scent at last. She was standing above the others, directing the fighting. A horde descended upon him before he could reach her. He couldn't see through the blood that ran from his torn ear. He twisted under them, sinking low to the ground and protecting his stomach. He lessoned his struggles, and as he hoped, they backed away. He must look dead, his body awash in blood. She wouldn't be able to tell. He forced himself to slow his breathing. His muzzle was scratched and bloody and stinging in the smoke. He watched Shenzi drop cautiously from her place and walk towards him.

"He's dead," she said. Not quite a question. "How anticlimactic."

She drew closer, still keeping her distance and stepped around the blood and pink froth that had dribbled from the hyenas' fangs. He could feel his energy returning, the ache in his lungs less pronounced and filled by other pains. He listened to her pawsteps circling his body. She might try to hurt him, and he readied himself for the pain, readied himself to remain inert. Power surged through his muscles. He kept his eyes locked on the rock above him. Hyenas growled, and he could see their feet move in and out of his vision. They circled him in much the same as way as Snenzi. His eyes watered.

"You," he heard, "make sure he's dead," and then she was directly in front of him, still too far for to him to reach. If he could propel himself forward he would have her. He felt the hyenas shift around him. His throat burned against the whisper of air he pulled in as the smoke poured down from the burning detritus. He fought his twitching muscles, and the need to breathe. She leaned close, her throat exposed.

With all of his remaining power he lunged towards her. There was no time for her to react, and he knew he had her. The hyena she had instructed moved at the same time. He barked as his target lurched , but he was fast and he dug his fangs into Scar's throat.

Scar grunted as the fangs sank into his mane just as his own teeth latched around Shenzi's neck. She pulled back in surprise. Blood leaked into his mouth, but he knew what he was doing and the damage was superficial. He tightened his bite, blocking her airway, and she whimpered and shivered under the vice of his jaw.

"Call him off," he said, his voice wispy, and muffled by her fur and constricted by the jaws around his own throat. The hyenas around him barked, and cackled, snapping at his haunches. "Call them off," he said, this time biting down into her flesh. More blood ran from his muzzle dripping onto the dirt below them. "I'll kill you," he said, "now call them off."

She froze in his grip.

"Stop," she whispered.

"Louder," he said.

"Stop," she shouted, hoarse from the smoke, and her wounds. "Back off," she said.

Thunder resounded in the background. The hyena underneath him unlatched his jaws and backed away.

The muscles in Scar's jaw shook, and he knew he was close to collapsing, but he couldn't let her know. Just a few more minutes.

"Send them away," he said.

She growled, and he felt the reverberation.

"I'm losing my patience Shenzi. I'll bite straight through your windpipe if you don't dismiss them this second."

"You'll be dead soon enough," she whispered.

"Lions lock their jaws in death," he said. "You'll suffocate, long and slow. You'll suffer for hours, days." He could smell her fear through the acrid fire.

"Back to base," she said and wilted in his grip. He heard snapping of branches in the distance. The stench of rotting meat faded. He found he could barely hold on. His back leg protested the awkward position. Blood ran into is eyes; it filled his mouth.

"Leave now and I won't kill you," he said. "But, if I let you live, you still work for me." His jaws loosened, and he felt himself drifting, his own body distant. "I bite through your neck, or you work for me," he said, his voice echoing weakly, the throb of his own heartbeat, dulling all other sound. He didn't have the strength to kill her. His head dropped from her throat. She spat and bit his ear. He barely felt it. When he looked up she was gone. The night crackled, the fire still burning.

"Demon," she had said.

The rain fell in torrents, and he felt himself weakening, sinking into the rush of water under his feet, a great deluge breaking. The fire around him succumbed and went up in thick suffocating swirls of smoke. The sky was covered in clouds. Rain droplets stung against his many wounds. His back leg protested the weight he demanded it should support. It shivered and trembled. His shoulders stung and burned and his breathes came in fast gasps. He pulled himself into the bracken and collapsed in a small dark cave underneath Pride Rock. The blood in his body seemed to turn to sludge as the fire outside extinguished. It would smoke for days he thought, but it would go out.


	2. Chapter

Beams of sunlight filtered in through the burnt branches and roots that surrounded the entrance to the small fissure of jagged rocks and dirt he had clambered into the night before. Light fell against his paw, the hair matted in blood, his own and the hyenas, maybe even Simba's. He heard the snuffling of some creature near the outside of the cave and his stomach growled, but when he tried to stand, he found that his joints were stiff. He hissed, choking on a ragged breath. He didn't know how long he had been asleep, unconscious, because he had slept without dreaming as if darkness had oozed into his bones and made him its own as soon as he collapsed to the solid ground.

He commanded himself to stand, to fight the pain in his body; the throbbing in his back leg that balked as he struggled to his feet. Before crumpling again, he lowered himself down. Apprehensive of the damage, he inspected the wound. It was swollen and black with dried blood. The hyena had snapped the bone like dry wood cracking under his own paw. It was a death sentence. The wound would kill him slowly if he didn't do something about it. He inspected his other injuries: more superficial than his leg, but some still oozed blood. He put a paw to his torn ear and rubbed the blood between the pads on his paw before wiping it though the dirt of the cave floor.

The hyenas might be out looking for him. Shenzi would want revenge. He had made her look like a fool, and he needed to get somewhere safe, somewhere that he could recover, take care of the worst of his wounds, and formulate a new plan. If he was going to dethrone Simba it would take some planning, and to do it alone would be difficult, but after dealing with the hyenas for months on end, watching their loyalty slowly decay as their insatiable need for food destroyed and blackened his kingdom, the idea of working alone became more appealing. It wasn't something he could dismiss anymore. If it wasn't for them he wouldn't be in this predicament.

In his reign he had taken time to survey the outer limits of his kingdom, remembering the steps that he had followed when he was a cub walking far behind his father and his golden brother, back before his recklessness had come to define him by the sharp red scar that lanced across his left eye.

His vision was intact, but a bit blurred, nowhere near as sharp as his right eye. His coordination was effected, and he did everything he could to hide any handicap the injury had given him. When Taka had become Scar, his father had told him the mark across his eye would be a reminder of his recklessness, his carelessness, and looking now at his patchwork pelt, his broken leg, he could hear his father's voice once again, deep and commanding, the deep echo of condemnation, rising like a spectre from his oldest memories. He clenched his jaw until the wound across his snout throbbed. His other senses more than made up for the slight impediment of his eye. He found he could smell prey much farther away than his brother ever could, he could hear it too seconds before his brother even had an inkling.

He pricked his ears at the sound of pawsteps outside his hideaway. Something stepped over broken sticks and debris from the battle. Nala. He recognized her scent instantly. He sniffed his own coat. He smelled of fire, a good disguise against her superior senses. He could ambush her, but he knew he wouldn't stand a chance. She was lithe and agile, one of the best hunters and trackers. He could only assume that she had been the one to find Simba, almost as if she had resurrected him from the dead. He pushed himself farther into the cave until his body was parallel to the crags and jutting stones of the back of the enclosure, and knelt, his body protesting the moment. Cowering like a cub, he berated himself, but he would be dead if she caught his scent.

He didn't think she would be his executioner, but she would delight in bringing him before Simba, letting him finish the job he had so easily left to the Hyenas, and it wouldn't take much in his state. The world had turned against him completely this time. He would need to ingratiate himself if he were to survive, gain their sympathy, their pity.

Nala's footfalls stopped outside of the cave. Did she have his scent? He smelled like blood too, something dead, rotten, most lions would stay away from such a harbinger, but he heard her rooting around pushing her nose through the burnt underbrush. He unsheathed his claws, and flattened himself against the dirt, his lissome form almost obscured by the shadows. If he could talk to her, maybe, he could gain the upper hand. If he could get her to listen to him for a moment then he might stand a chance. But to get her alone would be the only way. They were so close to Pride Rock that she could easily signal the other lions. He assumed Simba had sent the other lionesses out to search for food.

With the rainfall the night before, the watering hole to the south would be filled once again attracting the animals that had drifted away in the drought that had plagued his reign. Most of the pride would be located in that area. Simba would be eager to look over his kingdom. Scar wondered how far he would distance himself from his childhood mate.

Revealing himself would be a gamble. He knew she would react in fright and anger. He wouldn't stand must of a chance of fending her off, not with his leg the way it was. He would have to be swift, say what he needed to say, bring her to his side, if anything sow a seed that was sure to take root and flourish. She was his best bet of reaching Simba and Simba wouldn't go against his mate, would fall useless to her green eyes, and if all went well she would plead his cause.

She had hardened over the years that Simba had been absent; the pudgy, curious cub, growing into a sleek, murderous, willful, lioness. She was shrewd. She would be hard to trick. And now she had everything she had ever wanted. She would be near impossible to play, unless he could convince her there was something missing, something that he could provide her with.

He saw her whiskers, and then her nose poke into the den. Before he could decide whether it would be better to confront her in the open of the savanna or in the cave she pushed herself fully inwards, and then stopped. She looked to the back of the cave, and his breath hitched. He readied himself and prepared to push off from his right leg. It would be an awkward approach, sure to leave him open, but he had little to no other choice if she decided to go on the offensive.

"What are you?" she said after a minute. Accusatory, like he was something murky and dead, unrecognizable by sight or scent. She stood straight, but not ready to pounce, her tail lashed back and forth against the cave floor. Sunlight bathed her coat, dappled through the overhang of dead branches.

"Nala," he said weakly. Part of an act, he didn't want to acknowledge the state of his voice, stripped of its power by the smoke he had inhaled, raspy and effete. She stepped back, as if his weak lilting word had frightened her. She still didn't recognize him. Had he changed so much? But her fear quickly faded replaced by incredulity.

"You're alive," she said with disdain, hatred, and then ducked down into a stance of threat, nails scratching the dirt, shoulders lower than her haunches, ears back against her skull, tail lashing angrily against the sides of the cave.

"I can't believe it," she said. "We saw you fall, we saw the hyenas. Of course you would survive." She hissed, and stepped forwards, shifting back and forth on her front paws. She was sizing him up, like any good hunter, looking for a weak point, the best place to land where she could make her killing bite. Her tail flitted in and out of the spotted sunlight. He decided to appear as weak and nonthreatening as possible, and remained still, his head resting against his paws. He turned his gaze feebly in her direction.

"As you can see, they mostly succeeded," he said and then silence filled the cave.

"I should finish the job," she said. He was struck by the violence in her stance, in the vicious inflection of her words. She would kill him if he gave her the opportunity. One wrong word and she would be upon him. "I only hesitate because Simba wouldn't want me to."

"I'm amazed," he drawled. "Simba's seen the error of his ways?"

"No," she said and took a step towards him. "I wouldn't deny him the opportunity to finish you himself."

"My, my, what a little bloodthirsty picture of domesticity you two make. A marriage christened in blood and patricide."

"You can't say that." She growled. "How dare you accuse Simba of your crimes? And here you are still clinging to life like the cockroach you are."

He pushed himself closer to the wall, preparing for her coming attack.

"How do you live with yourself? You let us starve. You hurt us, abused us, and destroyed our home. You would have wiped us out if I hadn't found Simba."

"Listen to me," he tried to interject but his voice fell before the low angry growl of Nala's words.

"If I hadn't brought him back we would have all suffered your fate. You shouldn't be here any longer. Simba already thinks you're dead," she said and stepped closer. "He told me after the fire went out how relieved he was that you were gone, that you had burned up in that fire like the evil thing you are. And Mufasa, I don't know how I didn't realize it before…" her voice trailed off, ending in a low threatening growl.

Scar remained motionless, all but for his front claws which scratched the dirt in front of him, making deep gouges down into the cave floor. He would have to be quick, catch her off guard, disarm her. "Speaking of fathers," he said. "I hear, you never knew yours."

She was still in her crouch, this time she snarled. "Don't mention him," she said.

"Oh, but a father is indispensable, wouldn't you say? What it must be like to grow up without his influence, without paternal guidance. That's something that unites you and Simba isn't it? A lack of a father figur-" He gasped for breath as she leapt, her weight pinning him to the ground, one foot against his throat, the exact same position Simba had taken when he forced his confession from him. Her paw pushed down onto his raw throat, and his vision dimmed to narrow tunnels.

"Mufa-" he struggled to say, but her paw pressed harder against his throat.

Nala's eyes, her green eyes, looking down into his. His heart thrummed in his ears, louder than his gasping breathes.

"Don't you dare mention Mufasa," she said.

He twisted under her grip and pulled his feet inwards, raking his claws against her underside as he scrambled against her hold. Unfazed she lowered her gaze so she was looking into his eyes. He gasped in pain as her back foot pushed against his injured leg. Her face dulled before him.

"You'll never say that name again," she said.

"Father-," he said. And she growled, showing her teeth, and pushed her paw harder against his windpipe. His vision began to dull and fade, list away from him, her green eyes, the same shade as his own, somehow bright in the darkness of the cave, hovered above him and he managed to wheeze out, "daughter."


	3. Chapter 3

In this new darkness the light didn't dance, it didn't sneak in through the cave vines and the burnt bracken. The scorched savanna grass didn't whistle as a mild breeze caressed the fine tendrils. In this darkness there was very little. Nothing more than a creeping sensation that the place where there had once been light was now void of it, snuffed out in a single instant. Light and then none. This wasn't the cyclical darkness of the pridelands. Nothing like the gradual setting of the sun.

Scar had observed it sometimes when he thought no one was looking, had crept out of the cave he had come to inhabit high above the land in the heart of Priderock, and sat and watched the sunlight move along in a great arch over the fields, trees, and the beasts that crawled across it, watched as it burned in all of its bright intensity and then slowly faded and gave way to the darkness. He didn't like it. In it lay some sort of metaphor, either of himself, or of his brother, damning his reign or celebrating his victory. He wanted to believe the latter, but watching it he wondered if he wasn't the night, the thing left over, when everything else had been snuffed out. It didn't help that Sarabi had just informed him of the lack of prey and the unsuccessful hunting trip. If his kingdom was one of light, the darkness always overthrew it in the end. Either perspective seemed prophetic of doom, and he dismissed them, as products of idle thought. Even so, it unsettled him on more than one occasion, and in those moments of doubt he would pace his cave, thinking how silly it was to be upset by the setting of the sun.

But this new darkness he now found himself in was different, so complete, cold, numb, void of all sound but a deep hollow thrumming, a heartbeat, a great pounding of drums. And unbidden he remembered how in his cubhood he had heard the same sound somewhere far away, beyond the Kingdom that Ahadi oversaw. The other lions must have heard them, but no else ever seemed to acknowledge it.

And in the end, the sound had become his alone. Something only Taka knew, something his brother couldn't have. There was so little of that. He clung to anything he could make his own. Be it phantom drums, or even the scar across his eye that had come to define him, even replace his name, because as Taka he had been nothing. He was the brother of Mufasa; second in line behind the great golden progeny. But as Scar, he became more than that.

He would be surprised if anyone even remembered his birth name. He certainly never thought of himself with it. No, in his own mind he was Scar. Taka belonged to a different time. He had made his own name literally, one made it blood, and disregard, and it only followed that one with such a name should act in such a way.

This darkness though was endless. Even when he saw himself as the light snuffed out as the sun descended below the horizon, he knew that it would rise again, lifting out of the great earth, and coming to rest high in the sky, high above everything else, exacting its power in those long hours of the afternoon, nourishing, and killing, and ruling throughout the day. But this darkness was different, there would be no sunrise, this was an infinite oblivion that one could never rise from, an end to his empire, utter nothingness. But there was movement, a blow and then pain, nothing, and then pain, like something was striking him, and then retreating, returning again so that each blow sent an image of red out into the darkness that enveloped him. Behind his eyelids the red droplets spread, and then he opened his eyes. He smacked his head back against the rock when he was met by the snout of another lion, peering down into his eys. "Mufasa," he snarled, and staggered to his feet. Everything spun for a moment, the cave lilting violently to the left, and then righting itself so he was looking at Nala, and everything rushed back: the return of Simba, his fall from Priderock, the ensuing battle, and then crawling away like something weak and defeated and being discovered by Nala. His head throbbed, and he took deep gasping breathes, trying to pull everything back into focus, trying to think, plan, determine what to do. He needed to say something now. Stop her attack, win her over. But she wasn't attacking, her eyes were wide, she was breathing heavily, looking at him like he had something to tell her, or she had come to realize something.

"I appreciate you removing your foot from my throat. I've grown quite tired of being caught in that position. Very unpleasant."

"Stop talking," she said and then faltered. "Tell me again. What did you say?"

He stumbled, realizing that his ploy had worked, it had saved him at the last second. When her foot had drawn away from his throat, the sun had risen once again. He felt giddy. It had worked; he had her for the moment. If he could keep her that was a first step, one paw closer to reclaiming what was rightfully his. She had hesitated, that was all he needed. He had her attention, and now he could direct it, move her however he desired. He rubbed a paw against his throat, clearing his throat, being the good orator he was, it was never good to disappoint a waiting audience with a lackluster performance. He needed his voice. It still sounded different to his ears, the smoke making it lower, gravely, giving his words a darker deeper sound.

"I want to hear what you were trying to say," she said. She stepped forward, and under her anger there was curiosity. He had her hooked. "Only that, as I assume, you are unaware of your paternal lineage. And here I am, quite in the know," he said. And if it was the leer in his expression, or the dawning realization to his meaning, she took a step back, and then with a gasp ran from the cave.

A/N As always thank you for reading. Review are always appreciated! :)


	4. Chapter 4

Nala darted from the cave.

"Damn it all." He had hoped to avoid that reaction. He couldn't catch her in his state. He must be slipping if his plan was averted so easily. When he stuck his head outside the cave he was met with the overwhelming scent of other lions. Of Simba, Sarabi, and the blood of a successful kill. His back foot caught in the bracken and he stumbled. Simba and Sarabi turned in his direction. At Sarabi's feet lay a dead antelope.

"Oh, Simba, you should have seen it. The watering hole is full of life. The rain has brought prey ba-" Sarabi's words dropped away.

There was no point in hiding. If he lived through this it would be because of Nala, because of the insidious idea he had planted. It if worked she would keep him alive. Certainly not in comfort, but she still wanted answers. She was tenacious just like him. She had traveled the farthest when out looking for prey. She had brought a lion back from the dead. She could keep him from the same fate, if he played it just right. The savanna was open and bright after the cave, and the light blinded him when he stepped out.

Before he could do anything Simba leapt before him and roared, the sound so similar to his father's that he cowered instinctively before he could stop himself. He let out a cry of pain as his back leg took more of his weight.

"Scar," Simba said. The volume of the word deafened the savanna. Sarabi and Nala stood close by, staring him down, daring him to say anything, make any movement.

"Nephew," he said. "As you can see, I've had a bit of an ordeal." He shifted his weight away from his bad leg.

"Leave now," Simba said. "I don't want to do anything I might regret." Then as if hesitating, perhaps realizing the gravity of his words, repeated his first command, "Leave now."

"Your rule is over now Scar," Sarabi said, quietly like talking to a cub, using the same tuneful words when sending a naughty cub off to bed. It's past your bed time now little one, off to bed with you, don't want the termites to carry you away. All bad cubs were carried away by the termites, never to be seen again.

"What a sense of deja vu," Scar said. "It's as if I had this conversation only days before," he cast his sight on Nala and tried to read her expression. She stood wide-eyed, but wouldn't look at him.

"Leave now, Scar."

"You wouldn't force your wounded uncle to wonder alone into the Savana. I know you wouldn't do that. You aren't a murderer, Simba."

"No, that's you, Scar." He could see his nephew was unsure. He had probably spent that morning surveying his lands noting the damage, the lack of resources. Scar doubted that the small amount of rainfall would be enough to bring the savanna back to life. It would take time. But looking down, below his paw, he saw the first sprigs of grass between his toes.

He trembled from exhaustion and pain, and as Simba stepped closer his back leg finally gave out. He collapsed to the dirt, and roared in surprise at the sudden pain, it was deep and penetrating, a dull throb, and then a sharp stabbing agony that radiated through the rest of the leg, and left him gasping. There was no way he could run if he wanted to. In between the throbbing pain affronting his senses, the sneer of his nephew standing over him, he struggled to form thought, and instead frantically calculated his chance of survival. Either Simba would kill him, or he would leave him to die here. Either way he stood little chance of survival. Nala seemed unfazed. But he was sure he had gotten to her. It would start to dog her, she wouldn't leave him here.

His own father had hated him, despised him, belittled him, shunted him to the side, degraded him. And yet he knew how powerful a father could be. Only one with such power could elicit such strong reactions. His daugher, Nala, yes Nala was his daughetr, he was almost certain would have craved to have known her own father and yet Sarafina had never mentioned it to her. Never once, for all he knew. He waited, the pain overpowering his senses of reason. He wanted to give into exhaustion. It would mean admitting defeat. Simba's form blocked the sun, his great shadow lying across the Savanna. To think that moments before he had plans to reclaim the throne. Now with a sickening, sinking realization he knew his plans of trying to stay alive were dwindling. This was it. And he was almost too exhausted to care. Let Simba do it quickly. "Be merciful," he said, against the dirt. "Leave your poor Uncle some dignity."

"Look at you," Simba said with a bark of laughter. "I can't believe it. Asking for mercy after what you did. You killed my father, and blamed me, you made me think I had done it. I still think I did, Scar. I can't get it out my head." He paced back and forth in front of his Uncle. "You can't know what that feels like." The words had slipped from him like droplets of rain from a dark cloud. Unbidden, as if he was straining to hold back the deluge.

"Simba," Sarabi said, and stood next to her sun stopping his pacing. "Simba," she said again, and pushed a reassuring shoulder against his. "Simba, you did nothing wrong."

"I know," he said. "I know that, mother. We-we'll talk about it later," he said.

"A good king is merciful," Scar said from his lowly position.

"A good king that may be, But I can never forgive you."

"All accusations reflect on the condemner," Scar said.

"And what does that mean?" Simba paced in front of him, his nails scratching in the dry dirt.

"Only that the one accusing is not entirely exempt from the crime."

"I don't have time for your words Scar. For your mind games. I won't let you do this anymore. I won't allow you to stay here."

"Then you truly are a murderer. I knew you had the capacity for it after I saw you standing on your precious rock. The hyenas and the fire taking care of the one problem that stood between you and your throne. You sent me to my death. And here our noble king stands before us, blood on his claws," Scar said. He felt powerful. Sure he would get a rise out of Simba. He didn't care if it resulted in violence, just if he could gloat, if he could make Simba feel anger, guilt, regret over what he had done, then he would still hold power over his nephew.

But the surge of power sputtered out as Simba turned his back, his tail lashing violently and walked away, leaving Scar lying in the dirt. His back legged throbbed. He tried to stand, but ended up collapsing. "Simba," he said. His voice didn't make it past the small sprig of grass near his foot. Simba continued to walk away, an agonizing slowness to his step. He was at ease, a complete lack of care. Sarabi turned with her son, and walked shoulder to shoulder with him. Nala stayed, but wouldn't make eye contact with him.

"Nala. What I said before. I was being sincere," he said.

"No, Scar. You weren't," she said. And she followed Simba and Sarabi back to Pride Rock.


	5. Chapter 5

Simba ascended Pride Rock, keeping his eyes on the dirt. His mother was saying something, but he couldn't focus on her words. He kept hearing his Uncle's voice in his head, goading him, he wanted a raise out of him, that's how Scar worked, and that's how he got what he wanted. He was being manipulated like he had been all those years before. It's to die for, echoed in his head in his Uncle's distinctive voice. It's to die for. He stopped himself from peering over the edge, and focused instead on the cave in the heart of Pride Rock.

He and Nala had slept in there for the first time in years the night before. And he had slept like the dead. He could still smell the smoke, but he was filled with the sense that everything was going to be all right. Everything was in its place once again, all wrongs had been righted. And it was with this deep sense of relief he had fallen asleep, Nala next to him. Her breathing light, but full, and he sank so easily away.

But now there was a feeling of guilt wrapping itself around his insides, choking and squeezing, and it existed in tandem with the anger that had reignited upon seeing his Uncle. He was sure he had died the night before. He had felt something in that moment, something he didn't want to think about. He had felt a great relief, seeing that is Uncle was finished, so deep and penetrative, but that wasn't the problem. Fueled by anxiety he had returned to the Pridelands, and defeated the lion who had taken everything away from him. Relief was normal.

No, what disturbed him was the exhilaration. He was transfixed as the Hyena's descended upon his shabby, bloodied uncle. He had wanted to see his death. And maybe it was his duty as king to ensure the threat to his kingdom was annihilated, but such a thing should have been witnessed in detachment. It should not have elicited such an emotion from him. He had wanted to see the hyenas tear his throat out, see him ripped to pieces. The idea filled him with a dark excitement. He felt himself digging his claws into the edge of pride rock as if it were his Uncle's pelt. He tightened his own jaw as if he were biting into his throat, licked his lips as if he could taste the blood, feel it, warm, and pulsing, the taste of a kill. It wasn't until Nala came to stand beside him. He didn't know how long she had been there, but she had nudged his shoulder, said his name over and over again, and then finally, batted the side of his ear lightly, before he would look at her, before he turned his eyes away from the fighting below, even though it had been obscured by smoke minutes before. The laughter of the hyenas filled the Pridelands, but the roars he had heard before had quieted.

"Simba," she said. "It's over. It's really over." And then she pushed her body against his as the skies above them opened and rain fell in torrents over the dead land.

As he walked now and came to stop at the same place he had stood the night before, those feelings returned. He didn't look to the place where he had left his uncle now. It was over. He didn't need to think about that anymore. He could compartmentalize. That was how he survived when he left the Pridelands the first time, and that was how he would survive this too. He found Nala and wondered at her vacant expression, momentarily forgetting the problem of his uncle. "What's wrong," he said.

"It's-" she looked around, as if not knowing where she was. "I don't know. Simba, it's nothing. Really it's nothing."

"Did he say something to you?" he asked.

She stopped pacing and looked at him.

"Simba." She hesitated and took a breath. "I-I don't know if any of it's true. He lies about everything."

"What did he tell you?"

He tried not to look in the direction of his uncle, but caught the dark form out of the corner of his eyes. From up here his uncle looked smaller than ever. And he was slight to begin with. He could see every rib on his torn and bloodied coat. His back foot lay at an odd angle. His head rested against his front legs, his black mane coated in dirt, and blood, and pieces of burnt underbrush and bracken. Like something dead, a kill dragged in by one of the lioness.

"Where's my mother," Nala said.

"She was out hunting," Sarabi said. "I left her at the watering hole."

"I need to talk to her," Nala said.

"Wait," Simba said. "What did he say to you?" he stopped and realized how harsh and demanding his own voice sounded.

"I -I need to think," she said.

"You can't believe anythinghe says. He's lower than any weasel. He'll say anything that will get him what he wants. Anything. There's nothing about him that's real." Simba paced, and averted his gaze from the dark shape in the dust below his feet. "Nothing. He uses his power to hurt, and take away, and force the blame on others. " His claws raked through the dirt. His breathing was becoming ragged. His shoulders trembled.

"Has he always been like that?" Nala asked.

"To a degree," Sarabi said. "He always liked to play games, and he almost always won."

"When you were cubs?" Simba asked.

Sarabi nodded. "Mufasa would always take it all so light-heartedly. He let his little brother win, and Scar knew it. We both would let him win if it came to a contest in strength. Otherwise he would go into such a dark mood."

Simba listened to his mother, trying to imagine his father, mother, and Uncle as cubs, as mischievous as he and Nala had been.

"We would play ruler of Pride Rock. Mufasa and I were about evenly matched. The three of us always played together, but Scar was prone to injury. He would get so involved, one moment laughing and playing, fighting and rolling with his brother, and the next, so angry and hurt that he wouldn't even talk to or look at us. He would stalk away or lash out, and he wasn't playing. He would draw his claws, even while we always fought without ours. And the one time when Mufasa had pushed him from his spot Scar had been so outraged that he tried to slash Mufasa across his back. Oh, but your father, he just laughed the whole time, batting away his brother's paw, pinning him to the ground. Scar snarled, and fought, and struggled, like an ornery cub until Mufasa grew tired of it and let him up. And after a while he simply refused to play, and really ruler of Pride Rock isn't much fun without three players. Your father loved his little brother and wanted him to be happy. So we stopped playing. He was prone to these outbursts if he didn't get what he wanted. If he was bested sometimes he wouldn't talk for hours. Just stewed in his own head. And it was these black moods that Mufasa tried to prevent by letting him win. But I think Scar could see through that, and it enraged him even more."

"It seems just like him," Simba said and felt the pull to peer down at his Uncle's still figure.

"But then again, when he was winning, he was quite charming. When it came to words he always knew the right way to say something. He excelled in wit and logic. But even then you couldn't help but feel it was all a game, a motive behind everything he said. Each sentence thought out, so when he wanted something he was certain to get it. He knew how you were going to react, knew the outcome before he engaged anyone. I always wondered if there was anything more to him beside his own ambitions, besides his games. Mufasa always said there was, something that Scar showed only to him, opened only to his big brother. But I don't think he could accept how truly bloodthirsty his little brother was."

Her words trailed away, her voice breaking. He followed his mother's gaze over the edge of the great overhang of rock, and saw she was looking directly at the bedraggled body of her brother-in-law. He hadn't moved. And Simba wondered if he hadn't died after all. He hadn't really had the chance to see how severe his wounds actually were. Though judging from the snarling and fighting and the great number of hyneas that had made up his army, it must have been a cruel and desperate battle for his survival, and yet there he was. Somehow he had made it out alive. Against a hundred slobbering enemies he had survived, had used what he was best at against brute strength and once again come out on top. Simba gritted his teeth.

Pebbles tumbled over to his right. Nala stood at the base of Pride Rock.

"Wait," he said, and followed behind her, let me come with you. He needed to get away for a moment, clear his mind, and figure out what he needed to do. The other lioness wouldn't be happy to see the tyrant still breathing and he needed to come up with a plan, preferably something that didn't end any more bloodshed.

Nala didn't protest him accompanying her to find her mother, but she didn't look particularly enthusiastic either. And he wondered if maybe she had wanted to go alone, but he fell into step behind her, hoping she would divulge what was on her mind. He didn't want to push her, but he knew his uncle had said something. All the joy he had had sensed in her the other day, knowing that everyone was safe again, that everything was going to be all right had drained away, and it was almost as it had been when he first saw her in that great absence.

He had the feeling that he didn't know her anymore. And maybe that was true. They had diverged from each other, taken different paths, changed, grown apart, time and distance had had risen between them, and Nala was now just a warm body that slept against him. He still thought of her as the cub he used to play with, and he wondered if she didn't see him the same way.

They would have to discover each other all over again. They were strangers with roots in common, and little else, there branches stretching in different directions. Like great interconnected baobab trees. They had grown from a single seed and then there trunks had split. And yet that was enough to hold them together, the promise that Sarafinea had made to Mufasa, that her daughter would marry the future king. But who was she really? She seemed so different from the cub he had come to know, and he was certainly different from the curious cub that had been chased from his home.


	6. Chapter 6

Simba and Nala drew close to the watering hole. Sarafina ducked down beneath the waving fronds of undergrowth and slithered through the grass. Simba spotted her sleek back. She traced the ground, each step of her paw elegant and precise, and he could see the young gazelle separated from the herd. Sarafina's gaze locked on it. It could sense danger and when Simba and Nala approached its ears flicked in their direction. With a jolt it leapt and ran. Sarafina cursed and rounded on them, but the anger in her posture fell away as she straightened and recognized them.

"Well, I wasn't expecting you," Sarafina said and then laughed. "I keep expecting those smelly mutts." She came over to meet them, and Simba noticed how how her ribs jutted from her yellow coat. "Nala, it's wonderful. Everything's returning to normal. You won't believe how many gazelle we've been able to get this morning. More than enough to feed everyone for a few days. My mouth is already watering at the idea." She tilted her head when her daughter didn't reply. "Did Sarabi send you?"

"No, Mom," Nala said. "I need to talk to you."

Simba wondered if he should leave, but Nala's posture gave nothing away. He ran his paw through the dirt looking over the pridelands.

"Is something wrong?" Sarafina said. She looked between the two lions.

"No, no nothing's wrong, just something unexpected," Simba said hoping to ease the worry he sensed in her voice.

"It's Scar," Nala said.

Sarafina flinched. "He's still alive?" she said, her eyes wide. "But we all saw what happened. How did he survive?"

Simba watched Nala closely, her sight somewhere over her mother's shoulder, and he wondered what she saw and at the change that had already overcome her appearance, almost as if all the years that had come to separate them now settled over her; a great weight.

"Nala, what's going on?" Simba said.

"It's nothing, really, it's nothing," she said. But he could see that she was about to break, and the more she fought it the less composed she grew.

Sarafina moved closer to her daughter, but Nala took a step back. "Nala," she said, "did he tell you something?" Her voice was little more than a whisper.

Nala bent her head and ran her paw through the dirt. "Is he my father?"

Sarafina stepped back, a small squeak rising from her throat. "What did he say to you?"

Simba thought he had misheard her, and he moved forward to stand in front of his mate. "What? He's lying." But when trying to recall Nala's father no particular image came to him. For some reason he had never thought about it as a cub. He had a father, and a mother, and Nala had Sarafina. That was how it was. And then mimicking Sarafina he said, "What did he say?"

"That's it. That's what he said." And then as if letting out a deep sigh, her words burst forth, "You know, I always wondered." She turned towards her mother. "You always seemed so ashamed. I assumed it was a rogue lion, but Scar? All this time it was him?"

"Nala, please, just listen to me. I wanted to explain it all to you, but after everything that happened. After he took power and he threatened to kill all of the cubs that weren't his, I told him that you were his daughter, a-and he spared you. I didn't want to bring it up again. I just wanted you to have a life. I was scared to say it to anyone. I thought someone would see through me."

"Then you mean he's not?"

"I don't know," Sarafina said and looked to the side. "I don't really know."

"How do you not know?"

"I was very lonely, Nala, you have to understand. I was very afraid and very alone, and I thought I couldn't have cubs."

Simba lost track of her words. Scar was Nala's father? It couldn't be true. They looked nothing alike. There was nothing of that narrowness. None of the bullying, or superiority.

Simba had barely known Sarafina growing up, back in those hot arid days that seemed to stretch way into the very light that made up his dad's kingdom. He could remember her always sitting in the shade, her thin form half in and out of the shadows, her pink tongue moving over Nala's fur so like his own mother. She seemed loving, motherly, protective. His own mother was her good friend.

"But I have his eyes," she said, the realization seeming to weigh her down. "He really is, isn't he?"She stepped closer. "No, no. It can't be true. I don't believe him. "

"Nala, I'm so sorry, I should have said something earlier. I was- I was so relieved to think he was dead. and now-oh Great Kings, I didn't think he would survive."

Nala shook her head. "No. I don't believe him. It would be just like him. Right Simba?" She turned to him. "All he does is lie. You said so yourself. Everything he did to you was for his own gain. It was all a lie. He lied to every single one of us, about what happened in the gorge that day. I don't believe him." She stalked away before her mother could say anything else.

"Simba," Sarafina said.

He looked after Nala, but something kept him from following her.

"Simba, I really don't know."

"I understand," he said. "I'd do anything not to have any connection with him either."

"I wanted to protect her, and it was the only I could think to do it. He believed me. He must see something in Nala that he sees in himself, to say that.

"He sees whatever he needs to see in everyone," Simba said. He felt empty, exhausted, and the task before him sunk upon him like the sun lowering beneath the horizon.


	7. Chapter 7

Scar's shadow stretched before him and then shrunk back inwards as the sun moved across the sky. Sounds echoed strangely, the padding of feet all around him and then the flapping of wings. The rush of air raising the fur around his mane. He struck out as a vulture landed nearby, his claws grazing its neck. It took to the air with a scream.

The sun baked down. He needed to get back to the cave. If he could just get to his feet he could make it. It was barely a stone throw away. But he was so sapped of energy, and he found that when he did try to push himself upwards that the savanna would twist and squirm, zigzags and bursts of light filling his vision and then darkening, so that he would have to lower his head back to the ground to abate the dizziness.

One time he spotted Simba looking down on him. His mane so like Mufasa's that he flinched, but when he next looked the lion was gone, puffed into the smoke still rising from a few smoldering branches.

He needed to do something about his leg. His toes were numb, and it took great concentration to bend them. He pulled his leg closer and twisted around so he could reach it. The bone stood out from the skin, a white splintered shaft, and then everything rotated in a dizzying rush of black, the blood rushing from his skull. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Simba again.

"Nephew," he shouted his voice so hoarse and dry that it came out as a croak. But Simba made no move and the closer he looked he came to realize that there was really no one there at all, only the stretching shadow of the sun across the precipice of Pride Rock. The next time he looked up he saw Mufasa standing on the edge, his red mane tousled and blowing in the breeze. His brown eyes focused on his little brother.

"Mufasa," he yelled. "Brother, brother, brother." A small mantra that quieted the longer he repeated it and came to a whisper like the wind against his own whiskers.

He felt the padding of feet near his head and twisted his neck so he could peer upwards.

And if he was an apparition or not, he couldn't tell, but he shifted, guarding himself against the lion that stood in-front of him. "Simba," he said. "I knew you wouldn't leave me here."

Simba paced, the dry sand spitting up under his paws.

"Scar," he said with a low growl. "Leave now."

Scar laughed at how childish and unreasonable the demand sounded. He had to see that wasn't a possibility. "I would if I could."

Simba roared and turned on him. "Leave now, or I'll-"

"Or you'll what?" Scar said. "You'll rip out my throat. Simba, by now that would be a welcome mercy. By all means have at."

Simba resumed his pacing. It didn't take much to see that Simba wasn't holding up well under the task of ruling his new kingdom. Scar felt something rise in him. A new strength working through his limbs. The little furball was buckling under the pressure. Like the strong winds that would sometimes pick up gravel and dust off of the savanna, Simba's thoughts were twisted, confused. Anger, Scar thought, anger that there was a little hitch in his plan, that his return hadn't been the success he had first thought; this decimated land now his kingdom, and the deposed king still haunting the grounds.

But, oh, he could still place the barb and push it in deep and more than anything he wanted to hurt Simba.

"Oh, Simba and your conscience. How hard it is to get anything done when you spend hooours contemplating a simple task." Scar was well aware he might very well be digging his own grave.

Simba paced with his head to the ground, his claws out. Scar would bet his pelt on it though that Simba didn't have it in him. It was more fun to goad. "Oh Simba, Simba," he found the strength to push himself upwards, putting almost all of his weight on his front legs, his left back foot hung uselessly. And there was a strength he thought he had lost coursing through his body. He felt his heart pounding, the blood thumping in his skull. "I can try, I suppose, but I doubt I'll make it far. Oh, the paaain. You can't imagine."

Simba suddenly stopped his pacing in front of Scar. How big he had gotten. He looked like his father to a tee, and Scar was struck by the idea that it wasn't Simba standing before him, but his own brother. A creeping sense of recognition washed over him, and he shook his head trying to clear the thoughts. It had to be the blood loss, the fever. He found what he planned to say wiped from his mind, and he stood on shaking legs in front of the usurper.

"You're standing. You can leave," the apparition said. Before Scar stood his brother, and he gasped, recoiling,

"Mufasa-" just as he said the word his brother's struck him. Mufasa had hit him. Why, why would he do that? What had he done wrong? Something seemed to break inside of him, a deep wrenching tearing, a rending that made him want to pull himself inwards. Mufasa would never hit him, and it was with the mentality of a cub, of following his big brother, wanting to be his big brother that resurfaced in his mind, and blocked out the great shadow standing over him. The memory consumed him. The deep gash across his snout didn't hurt as much the betrayal.

XXX

It had been his father's name that had sent Simba over. All that wheedling, all the over drawn words, and false accusations, and the self-pity, he could take, but not using his father as a bargaining chip. He was sure Scar was about to say, but Mufasa would take pity, or some other barb to tear at Simba; to tell him he wasn't fit for the job of king; for the responsibilities and heavy decisions. And that had been it. His father's name sent the world into a spiral of red, and he had drawn his claws. He didn't know his intention in that moment, just to make him shut up, and he lashed out.

His paw had connected squarely with the side of Scar's jaw, and then with a whooshing noise, like a great gasp of breath, his Uncle hit the ground. Like how a rainstorm could suddenly block out the sun, one minute bright and hot, and the next cold and dark. His uncle lay under his him, moaning, and twitching his front paws, little whispers of words parting from his sharp fangs.

He had added three long scratches to the left side of Scar's face. Simba stepped back, afraid of his action, and then wondered if that that blow had been it; if Scar would die now? He had hit him with all of his strength.

"Scar," he said. He didn't want to touch the still form. Unbidden, he saw his father lying in the deep gorge, his fur plastered in blood. His red mane flattened around his bruised, broken face, and Simba let out a little wail, so similar to the cry of a cub that he couldn't believe it was his own voice, and he stepped back from the body. Sudden panic filled him, and he found he couldn't breathe. He saw himself, his father before him, reaching out trying to awaken him, trying everything he could to get his dad to open his eyes, but nothing worked.

Simba had been swallowed by the gorge and never come back. Even now when he stood near Priderock, he knew the truth. So much of himself had been lost that day of the stampede. And to be faced with that place was too much. He couldn't bear to look at the form lying in the dirt by his feet and instead he took off, like hyenas were snapping at his back legs ready to maul and kill. And in that flash, that great thrust of movement, as everything rushed around him, the wind against his face, the burning in his back legs, he felt better. It felt good to run. Then again, hadn't it always?


	8. Chapter 8

The dry savanna grass stuck in the pads of Simba's feet as he ran. The sun followed him. Cylindrical shadows made by the grass, by the rocks and trees he passed stretched across the ground. He pushed himself harder, his muscles straining. He didn't know where he was running. The image of his father lingered, and he forced himself to move faster. Black spots filled his vision, and he was forced to stop, his back legs shaking, barely supporting him as he gasped.

An antelope stood not far from him, frozen under his gaze, but he didn't acknowledge it. His stomach was twisted in knots. Even if he was hungry there was no way he could hunt. It took a slow step backwards, its eyes focused on him, and then seeming to realize he posed no threat it dashed and leapt and tore across the savanna.

He stood panting unaware of his environment, even of the great tree in front of him, as if his feet had led him to this destination. It was the tallest thing in the empty valley, and he realized where he stood. This was Rafiki's home. Something had led him here. His heartbeat started to slow, to fade back among his senses, and his vision cleared. "Rafiki," he said, but it came out hoarse, small. Rebelling against the sound, he roared, "RAFIKI!"

"I may be old, but I'm not yet deaf," came the reply, and the mandrill swung down from a branch, one hand holding his ever present cane, the other anchoring him to the tree. "Young King, I was just thinking of you in preparation of a great festival, and I had the funniest feeling that I would be seeing you quite soon." He sidled down the tree, moving quickly for someone his age. "But I have to admit this was still quite unexpected."

"Rafiki- " he faltered, and licked his muzzle, trying to find the words. He still felt like he was the young cub back in the gorge, and he wanted nothing more than to curl up and be rid of the memory. His legs shook. He wanted to run.

"Simba," and as if reading his mind, "you can't outrun a memory."

And Simba felt the horrible bubble that had filled his chest burst, and he gasped for air in a great sob. "I know. I just thought I was free from Scar."

"He is not dead then?"

"I don't know," Simba said. "He might be, I couldn't tell. I just had to get away. I didn't know what to do. I didn't even mean to come here. It just happened."

"I highly doubt that," Rafiki said. "Something led you here. Someone guided you."

And understanding his meaning, Simba let out a breath. "My father seems to point me in your direction a lot."

"Well I was his adviser for a great number of years."

"And you're the closest, aren't you? I mean to the Great Kings. You can talk to them, when the rest of us can only see their light when the sun sets."

"It's taken me years, Simba, to get to that point. I've learned to clear my mind and listen. You'd be surprised what comes to you then; the rest of the world fades away, and even your own heartbeat gets lost. The voices that lie underneath everything, start to make themselves heard, but not always, and not always so clearly. But your father, perhaps because he is not so far gone, is the loudest among them."

"What did he say I should do?" Simba asked, his breathing coming easier. He felt relieved. Rafiki seemed to hold the answers to the universe, and surely his problem wasn't one on level with the incomprehensible celestial world. Rafiki would be able to fix it, give Simba the advice he needed.

The mandrill tilted his head and scratched his chin with the tip of his cane. "I don't rightfully know."

Simba looked to the ground. "I think I killed him," he said. "I wasn't thinking right. I lashed out, and he just hit the ground, and the whole- Oh Great Kings- I couldn't move. It was like I was frozen there, and I could see my dad in the gorge. That's never happened to me before, not like that. I used to think about it all the time, but to actually be there - it was like I was a cub again, weak, useless, the cause of it all."

Rafiki nodded. "Terrible things can do that to us."

"I thought I was going crazy. All I could think to do was run."

"No, No, not crazy. It's natural when you've experienced something awful like you have Simba. It is very brave to face such a thing."

"But I ran."

"Not so far, though. It is easily fixable. You ran to the right place," Rafiki said and laughed. "Let me have a look at this uncle of yours. I'll grab a few things."

Simba nodded, suddenly feeling drained. He closed his eyes, trying to block out all of the sounds around him, all the feelings; the grass under his paws, the heat, but his own heart was louder than anything else, and he found he couldn't get to the place that Rafiki spoke of.

"Young King," Rafiki said and tapped his shoulder.

Simba started, aware that some time had slipped away from him.

"I have what I need." Rafiki held up the cane to show Simba a neatly wrapped satchel of leaves looped around one end and anchored with a thin vine.

"That'll be enough?" Simba asked.

"How hard did you hit him?" Rafiki asked.

"It wasn't just me. He fell off Pride Rock and was attacked by hyenas."

"Well, if he survived all of that, I doubt a little knock to the head could have done much more damage. It wouldn't be the first time after all."

"It wouldn't?" Simba asked.

"I suppose no one ever told you how he got his namesake scar."

"I never thought to ask Dad."

"Well come on, let's walk. We should hurry, but I will tell you a brief version."

They hurried across the savanna. Simba was glad to have Rafiki's story because he didn't know where his mind would wander with it out. And the chance to hear a story of his father as a cub was something he longed for.

"They were both still quite young," Rafiki started, "their manes just starting to come in when the water buffalo declared a monopoly on the watering hole. There was a drought, and many animals were suffering. They came to your father asking for help, and seeing that it was time to give some responsibility to the next future king, Ahadi sent Mufasa out to have counsel with them. Scar didn't say much, but it was easy to tell he was irritated by the responsibility that was given to your father, and it must have been then when he fashioned his plan.

He followed Mufasa to the watering hole and hid in the reeds on the opposite side. When Mufasa began to speak to the water buffalo, explaining the situation, Scar interrupted from the other side of the reed bed, telling them that Ahadi had declared that Mufasa was to attack, and fight for the watering hole. Upon hearing this, the water buffalo was enraged and began to attack Mufasa. Before Mufasa had the chance to explain, and perhaps Scar was ignorant of the size of the buffalo herd, the water buffalo ordered his guard to attack Scar. Mufasa was able to outwit the charging buffalo, but three of his herd had charged Scar with full intention of killing him. They would have succeeded if it wasn't for Mufasa and the intervention of Ahadi at the last moment. I don't rightfully know what would have happened if Ahadi's youngest son had been murdered that day. The blow to his head had been devastating. He was knocked unconscious, and the wound across his eye was terrible, but I was able to heal Taka that day."

"Taka?" Simba, asked.

"That is your Uncles birth name. It was only after that day that he took on the name Scar. It was his own recklessness that earned him his name, and it was a name he adopted himself. "

"He was sorry for what he did then?" Simba said.

"I wouldn't say that, more that he embraced his true nature fully in that moment."

"Trash, garbage, dirt," Simba said. "That's what Taka means, and it fits. He didn't deserve the chance to change it."

"Ahadi had a different meaning in mind when he gave his son that name, but it was one that Scar would never realize."

As they moved, Simba caught the scent of something rotten. He turned quickly trying to identify the source, but he saw nothing. Seeing that Rafiki seemed to pay it no heed, he decided it was an issue to look into later, after the pressing one had been taken care of. The tall savanna grass rustled as they wove their way back to Pride Rock. Simba didn't know what they would find. He half suspected that his uncle would have disappeared. That it was all a nightmare, and he would awaken, and everything would be all right; at least as all right as he could expect it to be. Even among the dead grass he could see the start of green. It pressed back against his paws, alive and springy, not like the itchy dead stalks that stuck to his mane, caught in his paws, and broke under their steps. The sun was beginning to dip low into the sky. Birds flocked across it, dark silhouettes against the blood red light, as if they themselves burned with it, but as they passed its great mass, they retook their forms and disappeared in the horizon.

"Why'd did no one see it then?" Simba asked. "Scar, Taka, whoever he was wanted to kill Dad even then. No one thought that he might do it again?" Simba let out a bark of laughter. "I can't believe they still trusted him after that."

"You're grandfather knew his son was troubled, but he still loved him. He thought it was just how young lions act out. Supposedly, Ahadi as well had been fond of practical jokes in his youth."

"I wouldn't call that a practical joke. My dad could have been killed."

"It's true," Rafiki said. "It was a sign that none of us took into account."


	9. Chapter 9

Simba was astounded to see that they had arrived back at Pride Rock. The distance had felt so much greater when he was running away from it. Sarafina stood by Scar, looking down at his body. "He's still breathing," she said, her voice little more than a whisper. "I thought maybe he had stopped, but no, he's still alive." Simba could see the small shiver that seemed to move throughout her whole body.

Here were Nala's parents. He still couldn't accept it. It couldn't be true. His chest ached to know what Nala now had realized, and he hoped she was okay. As soon as he figured out what to do with Scar, he would go find her. He couldn't believe he had let her leave, but he had been so shocked in that moment, that he hadn't been thinking straight. All he could think, was that he needed to confront his uncle, and then everything had gone wrong. He hadn't wanted to hit him. He hadn't wanted to knock him unconscious. Instead of getting a real answer to his question, he had lost his chance to find out if what Scar claimed was true or not.

"Rafiki, you came to help?" Sarafina asked absently. Rafiki moved closer to Scar, walking on two feet. Simba watched transfixed as he moved over the body.

"We need to get him out of the sun," Rafiki said. The shadow of Pride Rock was stretching across the savanna. "The heat will kill him if it hasn't already," he said. Rafiki moved closer, wielding his stick.

A wise action, Simba thought.

Rafiki poked Scar with the edge of it and satisfied to see there was no movement, he moved closer and used his thumb and forefinger to lift one of Scar's eyelids. He nodded and made a small clucking noise in his throat. "Yes, as I thought," he mumbled. He moved down Scar's body, taking in the various cuts and contusions, and stopped at his back leg. Simba followed Rafiki trying to think like the mandrill, and take in the situation. "It is best to take everything in first. Don't think about anything else, not the sand under your paws or the sun on your back, or anything inside of your head. We just look. We don't judge, just collect."

Simba didn't know if it was possible for him to see his uncle in such an objective way. But he followed Rafiki. He really did look dead. Except for small rise and fall of his side, Simba would have said that he was. Rafiki leaned in, knocking his teeth together in concentration.

"Very, very bad," he said. "Here, I'll help you. You want to save this fur ball then we have to move now." Simba stayed rooted to the spot. If only it could have been Scar in the gorge that day. "Get him up. I need the sun and he doesn't. There's not much time." Simba didn't want to have contact with his uncle, and shied away from the idea of having to heft him over his own back. Rafiki had stopped by Scar's injured back foot.

Simba swallowed against the lump in his throat, and padded closer to Rafiki, who had one of Scar's legs lifted up in his paws. Simba knelt down, and Rafiki placed the leg over his shoulders, so he was able to nose underneath his uncle, until his body was slumped over Simba's. Even though Simba was tall, his uncle was lanky and his limbs dragged in the dirt. Scar moaned. Simba didn't realize how light his uncle was. The weight across his back was so slight, almost to be absent. They had all been starving while he was away.

The contact was like hot coals raking against his fur. He wanted him off of his back now, and he moved up Pride Rock, ascending the steep stones, until he stood on the jutting precipice and then he stopped, realizing that the only place he could go was into the cave. The cave where his mother and father used to sleep, the place where he and Nala now spent their nights, and the thought of putting his uncle in that same spot, somewhere he had always associated with love and warmth, made him recoil.

Rafiki stood by his side, and motioned for him to go in, but he couldn't move. He couldn't shake how much a desecration it would be to his father's memory. As if to prove his point, Scar shifted, and mumbled, "Mufasa."

Simba shifted his weight and fought the urge to shoulder him to the ground.

"Just to the edge of the cave, Simba," Rafiki said. "That will be enough light. Hurry now, the sun will set soon."

Simba looked over his shoulder at his kingdom. The sun was touching the horizon, burning fiery red, and angry. He moved towards the cave, dropping down into a crouch and rolled his Uncle from his back. He hit the ground with a small gasp of air, and Simba stepped back, feeling lighter. He took a deep breath to steady himself.

"Is this right, Rafiki?" He said without thinking. But in what way did he mean? His return? His helping his Uncle? This decision that was certain to affect all decisions that came after? His place as king?

"Very right. That is a good spot for what we'll be doing." Rafiki laid the leaf bundle he had brought with him on the ground, and untied the vine that held it shut. "I will need your help, Simba. The pain will awaken him, and he will not be happy, delirious probably. Maybe this will be to our advantage. Try to listen to him. See what he has to say."

Simba scoffed, but moved closer. "What should I do?" he felt as useless as a cub. The same cub who could do nothing to stop the stampede and save his father. That little cub who still trusted his bloodthirsty uncle. The lion who was to cowardly to do what was right, and protect his kingdom. Instead he was sheltering and helping the lion who had caused all of his problems. A quick bite to his throat and it would all be over, but he knew he couldn't do it, even though he was disgusted by the lion in front of him. And maybe, even if he tried it wouldn't work. His uncle had been rejected. If not to the stars where did lions go? Maybe he could never die. He was immortal, his mane as dark as a starless night, here to roam forever, a phantom, and if Rafiki did nothing, he would awake sometime in the night and wander away, dissipating into the darkness.

Rafiki's voice pulled him from his reverie. "I need to set this leg, or he will die."

Simba looked at the blood encrusted leg, as he moved closer, he smelled the scent of death, like rotting meat.

"I need to open it and clean it, and set the bone."

"You can do that?" Simba asked, and looked at the mandrill.

Rafiki held up his hands and flexed his thumbs. "We mandrills have a little something extra." He grinned.

Simba peered down at his thumbless paws and tried to bend them with the same dexterity that Rafiki showed with his strange extra appendage.

"Picking bugs from friends wouldn't be nearly as much fun if we had your clumsy paws. We'd be knocking each other out of our homes day and night. I see the way lions bat at everything," Rafiki said. He chortled.

He moved over to the open bundle and looked at his tools. He hummed to himself, nodding and arranging them in a way Simba didn't understand. There would be no way he could wield any of those with his own paws, and he wondered at the diversity of the Pridelands.

"You will need to hold him down. Simba, please, I don't want to lose my head to this excuse of a former king," Rafiki said.

"He might not wake up," Simba said.

"For that to be true, he would be dead." Rafiki said. From the bundle he took a long sharp rock, and held it in between his thumb and forefinger. Rafiki had narrowed the tip to a point. He looked to Simba. Simba moved closer to his uncle putting his front legs on his Scar's thin shoulder, and the other against his neck, avoiding a bite mark from the hyenas.

"Okay," Rafiki said and rubbed the stone tool between his hands. "I don't know which one of us will come out alive in the end." He laughed a little.

Simba raised an eyebrow and let out a deep sigh.

Rafiki drew the sharp stone through the scab. Blood began to flow around the jutting broken bone. "Clean through," Rafiki said.

Simba looked away. He looked at his uncle's black mane, of the color of his fur against his uncle's darker coat. Rafiki moved back to the leaf that held his tools and picked up a small round bowel that was filled with a brown viscous liquid. He dabbed it around the wound. "The next part will hurt," Rafiki said. Simba nodded. And made sure he had a good grasp against his uncle's shoulder. Though he couldn't see him putting up much of a fight in the state he was in.

Rafiki mumbled as he worked, strange words that Simba didn't understand, almost like the nonsense rhyme he had heard him saying when Rafiki had found him after he'd run from Timon and Pumba. And with his own head pressed against his Scar's mane, holding him tight, he heard mingled in with Rafiki's words, the protests of his Uncle. First a low whimper.

Rafiki cut in, "Don't let him move. This is very delicate work."

Simba looked to the side, and saw Rafiki's nimble fingers maneuvering the bone back into place.

"Mufasa," Scar said.

Simba turned back towards his uncle at the word, a fire deep in his stomach igniting. Scar's voice didn't rise above a whisper. His eyes were tightened in pain. Simba wanted to move. He couldn't stand being this close to him. He saw the three slash marks across his Uncle's face, and he stayed put. He had lost his temper. That was everything he didn't want to be. He needed to be cool headed, to think through his decisions. A good king didn't react like that in anger. It was something Scar would have done. He bit his lip. He shifted.

"It was never a game," Scar hissed through his teeth. The consonants hard and fast, and bitten, and then the whimpering started again, the shifting of muscles under Simba's hold, the ripple perceivable down the length of Scar's thin body. And then, "why, why, why?" over and over again, and some more incomprehensible words.

"Rafiki, are you almost done?"

"Shh." the mandrill said. "Takes time."

"I killed you. I killed you," Scar said, low and fast. The words struck deep, like barbs, and Simba felt heat under his fur and skin moving through his body, making him draws his claws. And then Scar shifted, bucking with all of his weight, and Simba pushed with all of his strength against him. Scar's eyes were open, but caught in the light of the outside. He appeared blinded, his front feet kicking outwards, his claws extended, and one set raked through Simba's chest fur, catching and tearing.

"Almost done, just hold him still, a bit longer."

"I'm trying," Simba said. Even though he was superior in strength, his uncle was fighting for his life, and the adrenaline coursing through his body, controlling his limbs, trying to get him away from the pain in his leg, made him fight like a much younger, stronger lion. Simba did all he could to keep him from moving, but another slash to his upper leg, caused him to let out a roar, and he barely stopped himself from batting Scar across the skull.

"Almost done," Rafiki said. "Almost, just need to wrap it. Keep him still. Don't let him move. "

"I don't know what to do." Simba laid his weight across his uncle, but he slithered out from under him, his nails screeching against the stones, dragging deep white marks into the floor of the cave. Rafiki moved swiftly, picking up his stick, and leapt in front of the lion. With one fast movement, he brought it down over his head, and with a small gasp, Scar collapsed.


	10. Chapter 10

The feeling was similar, not the same, but some elements were familiar. The feeling of the cool stone under his head. The smell of something medicinal. A dull feverish pain. A great throbbing throughout his whole body. And the mandrill. Scar couldn't remember why he was here. But he knew that he had lived through this before. And then he heard the voice of Mufasa and Ahadi. They were talking, but he couldn't interact with them. They were in the cave with him. He couldn't open his eyes.

In the darkness, their voices played around his ears. Mufasa's voice was light, high, the voice of a cub, and his father's voice floated up from the darkness. It struck him funny that he should even remember that voice. He didn't know why. His position in time confused him. There was Simba, and there was Mufasa and in some way they were one in the same, but he couldn't separate them in that moment, as if the two golden beings had fused together. But now the cub spoke in the voice of his brother, and as he focused, the words drifted up faster and clearer from the darkness, and he could understand them.

"Dad, what does Taka mean?" Mufasa said. They were talking about him. He pricked up his ears, and even though he didn't seem to have a body, the feeling of his ears moving seemed real.

"You're mother and I thought long and hard about what to name you two."

"Well I already know what Mufasa means, but what about Taka? I thought it meant dirt. But why would you name him that?"

Something pushed against Scar's face, and he put a paw up to push it away.

"It does mean dirt," Ahadi said. "Where does everything come from and where does everything go?" His father's deep voice echoed through the darkness, bouncing off walls he couldn't see.

"Dirt?" Mufasa asked.

"Everything does. The trees grow from it. All life comes from the earth, you and me and every other creature that roams over the land. When we die we return to it, and the grass that grows over our bodies feeds the wildebeest. We eat the wildebeest, and when we die the cycle starts over again. And from the dirt grows the most beautiful world imaginable. It's a foundation. Cubs, like you and Taka are, have your whole lives ahead of you."

"So someone with the name Taka will make something beautiful?" Mufasa asked.

"That's what your mother I can only wish for," Ahadi said. Their voices hovered above him like the vultures, and he opened his eyes to see the Mandrill standing in front of him, and he didn't know who he was, Taka or Scar, cub or lion, but his claws were out, and something had him by the mane, and the mandrill had this stick raised above his head, and he knew himself for the briefest of moments, the deposed king Scar, and then it came crashing down over his head.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"You can't let that overgrown fleabag sleep in there. He'll have your head for a breakfast muffin."

"I don't want him in there either. But Rafiki says he needs to be somewhere out of the sun."

Voices drifted into the cave, and Scar rolled over, letting out a small groan from pounding pain around his eyes.

"I can't believe you're letting him stay. Earth to Simba, he tried to eat me. And you know that's number one on my list of unforgivable acts, followed closely by near destruction of your home! If you somehow forgot that little fact."

"Timon, I didn't forget. But I want to question him."

He tried to focus on the voices, but the grogginess surrounding him, like a thick morning fog made it near impossible.

"About what? What could he possibly tell you. Simba, are you thinking straight, maybe in that fight he knocked something loose in your head. We're talking about your murderous, revengeful, manipulative uncle, here. I don't even know the guy, and I wouldn't touch him with a thirty foot pole."

"Well, he's not going anywhere even if he wants to. Rafiki, said the pain in his leg would be enough to keep him out for awhile."

"Yeah, but does that monkey know your Uncle or what? Because if you're sleeping in there with him, what are the chances that he doesn't rip your throat out?"

"Timon, didn't you come here for a reason?" Simba said and Scar detected the annoyance.

Everything was heavy, his thoughts slow, and thick, and he struggled against the fog, knowing he should be disturbed by his lack of faculties, but somehow numb to the point where concern was nothing more than a thought, a passing blip. Much easier to keep his head against the cold stones, the throb in his leg, a tiny pulse now, his head heavy and warm. Simba's voice echoed from outside the cave, down the passage, and reached him as if from miles and miles away.

"Did you see Nala?" Simba asked.

"No, but , really Simba, I have something to tell you I think you might like to know. Look, I was on my way back to my home, you know to see Ma, and all my siblings. Anyway I was getting near to the watering hole, and I hear this cackling, and you know my fur just about stands up on its own, because I know that laugh. Like any brave meerkat, I grabbed my tail and dropped behind a rock to do some investigating, and lo and behold, one of those fleabag mutts is making a gazelle into his late morning brunch. And I only saw the one, but pee-yew, did I smell a whole murderous mob of them."

"Okay." Simba said with a sigh. "I figured they wouldn't leave so easily. Where was it exactly?"

"About fifty feet from the waterhole, back in the valley."

"Okay, Timon, I appreciate you coming back to tell me. I'll talk to the lionesses about it. I'm sure someone else caught the scent."

"Simba, just be careful, okay. I'm thinking maybe I should stick around, make sure your scraggly pelt doesn't become someone's breakfast."

"I appreciate your concern, Timon, but everything's going to be okay. It's going to take a while for everything to get back to normal."

"Yeah, especially with the murderous carcass of an uncle in your living room."

His first thought when freed nominally of the fogginess was to move. The cave he was in smelled strongly of Simba and Nala, not being able to understood, he felt fear when he thought of Simba. The urge to get up and move, get away from that scent, gave him the strength to stand. His back leg had been secured with a few pliant green branches, and one thick one, and wrapped in vines and leaves. The smell of medicinal herbs made him think of Rafiki. And his thoughts caught up to his fear. The voices outside had faded away and Simba's scent had lessened, meaning he had left the entrance of the cave.

Though knowing his nephew and the paranoia that now seemed to possess him, he wouldn't have left the cave unguarded, most likely one of his former pride members stood outside right this moment. It was best to stay put for the time being. And moving had sent the now familiar sensation of spinning back to his head, but refusing to lay back down, he sat delicately on his haunches leaning slightly to not aggravate the pain. For some reason it hurt much less then he thought it should. Probably some ointment Rafiki had put on it. The wounds and bite on his back had been caked in mud, and he had the slight recollection to that being one of Rafiki's main methods of treating wounds. It did wonders to soothe the sting and ache.

He thought that perhaps the plants and ointments were giving him a false perception of his own strength. It was amazing how fast Simba and Nala's scent had overtaken his own, mere days since he had been ousted. Shivers accosted him. He supposed from infection. He felt a great gut gripping anger. And he shifted, wanting nothing more than to move, to reclaim his kingdom with one well thought slash of his paw. Or bite straight through Simba's windpipe. But that wouldn't do. No, if only he could reach someone, he could ensure his survival until he was well enough to make another move. And as if on cue, he heard the voice he had wanted to hear.

"Let me in."

"Nala, it's not safe."

"I don't care. I'm the queen. Now let me in."

A/N: Hi to all my readers! I hope you're enjoying the story. I would love to hear from you. Good or bad, let me know what you think of the story so far.


	11. Chapter 11

"I don't care. I'm the queen. Now let me in," Nala said.

He had never heard her talk to one of the lionesses like that before. As his daughter entered, he shifted, trying to get a better look. Even when she had been part of his pride, he thought of her rarely. He would have stretches of melancholy, he put down to hunger, that would make him think of her; try to see something of himself in her: her stature, her attitude, her outlook. He observed her from afar. Though one time, when she had gone out hunting, he had slunk behind her, making sure the wind was blowing backwards, so there was no chance she could catch his scent. He watched her movements as she stalked her pray. She used stealth, lithe movements, placing her paws in the exact right spot, avoiding the driest grass, and the broken stick that would give away her position, moving in such a way, if he didn't have her scent he would have lost her. When she attacked, there was no hesitation. She moved precisely, knowing where to launch forward, where to land, and where to deliver the bite. Despite himself, he had been in awe.

If his coordination wasn't compromised by his left eye, surely he would have moved in the same way. The doubt, he had first felt at Sarafina's words, "She's yours." - It had been enough to make him hesitate, to spare her life. Now, he could see the truth. There were parts of himself he could clearly see in her; Her eyes, that shift from blue to green that the light would bring out in certain angles, in the reflection of the watering hole was the same trick in his own.

When she entered the cave, besides the idea that she would truly be an adversary, that she possessed the same faculties as him, he realized that manipulating her wouldn't be a feat easily accomplished. To gain her trust, he would have to stoop, he would have to give her something of himself, be it true or not. He wondered, if such a ploy would have worked on him at one time, and how effective his own tactics would be against someone with the same mind to manipulate. It would take cunning. His heart rate spiked at the idea of outsmarting someone who was on his level. Oh, what a game it would be. Like taking himself on in a battle of wits. She also had a power that he didn't possess. He could admit to himself, there was something of his father, Ahadi in her, something of Mufasa too: lightness, he thought. Though, certainly, not incorruptible. She stopped and let out a sigh.

"I want to talk to you," she said.

"Nala, I didn't expect you. Simba I think must be quite concerned."

"I'm sure he is," she said, and moved closer, her eyes flashing in the small islets of light that fell across the floor. And then with a great resignation, she said, "I believe you."

"You do?" he said, and part of him wondered if he wasn't hallucinating the whole thing.

Nala sat down.

"I used to wonder," she said.

He couldn't read her, and it was frustrating. She sat still, her face locked on his, and spoke slowly and calmly.

"A long time ago, I used to speculate, usually, when I saw Mufasa and Simba together, but otherwise I was happy with just having Mom. And then as I grew older and learned the rules of the Pride Lands, and found that you hadn't killed me, I figured that you must have been too weak or cowardly to go through with it. You aren't known for your compassion, Scar."

Scar flashed his teeth. "But you've seen the error in your thinking. And I'm not the coward you seem to think I am."

"I never said that. You are the most cowardly, pathetic, contemptible lion I've ever known."

And the thought came to him that perhaps she was weak in this moment. She had come to him seeking an answer. She would believe him, because she would want something in him to be true. She must hold the hope that he might prove her initial idea of him false. "Nala, I turned to you. I took a risk. I revealed myself to you, because there's something I need to tell you. Something of great import."

She sat silently, regarding him with a scathing look, and thankfully waited for him to continue. "I don't know why I'm listening to you, but - but tell me what you want to say, before I change my mind."

"That night when Simba came back, what you saw, it was all an act, an attempt to save myself. And yes, yes, I suppose you could argue it was cowardly, but when faced with your own imminent death, you find yourself admitting to things you could never fathom. "

"Scar- " she said, a low growl in the back of her throat, chasing his name. "I won't listen to anymore lies."

"Nala, I wouldn't lie to you. You can't imagine how long I've wanted to tell you, but after years of not saying anything, the impetus wasn't there. I thought you would be happier not knowing your patronage if it meant your father was a lowly subject."

"You were the King's brother. He listened to you, believed you, loved you. You had more power than you could imagine, "she said.

He recoiled. "I grieved him," he said. "What it was like to be unexpectedly thrust into power, when I never dreamt in my life of obtaining such a position, the stress, I'm surprised I haven't gone gray by this point. I never wanted to be king," he said.

"Well, when you were in power, it certainly didn't look like that."

"Nala what I said, earlier, what I said on the night Simba returned, it was all true. Don't you see how he twisted my words? I was never meant to be in power, and he knew it. He knew the throne was his rightful place, and with that much conviction of course it would be easy to believe him. The pride wanted to believe him, because Simba had returned after all that time. He had always been beloved by the lionesses, by his own father. I'll admit I even had a soft spot for him at one point. He often came to me for guidance."

"Scar, stop," she said.

He was losing her. "Nala, I don't want to give you this idea, it truly pains me, but, how well do you know him? As a cub, it can be difficult to read someone else, and you of course only knew him in that part of your life, but as an adult observing his growth, he was always a bit deluded."

"Scar, I wouldn't say that." Her tail thrashed against the stone.

"No, no, not deluded- it's this leg, the pain, it's getting to me - no not deluded - enthusiastic, wouldn't you say for his role of becoming king? Now correct me if I misspeak, but wasn't it his bravado that almost resulted in your untimely deaths. A little excursion to the elephant graveyard, if I remember correctly."

"We were cubs. I can't believe I'm even having this conversation with you. Scar, "she hesitated. "Everything you say, I can't be sure what's true and what's not."

"Now that's not completely right, is it? You're the one who came to me with a declaration. So you know that it's not all a lie."

"You don't know- " she took a steadying breath. "How, so very, much I don't want to believe it. How I want nothing to do with you. I almost left. I was at the edge of the Pride Lands, and something made me turn around, and I came back."

"I understand, Nala. There are certain things, certain innate desires for something that can have control over our senses. And for you, a chance at family is…compelling. And now that Simba is king again-

"The rightful king," Nala interrupted.

"Yes," he ducked his head, "the rightful king and I'm being held in contention, for a crime I'm not guilty of-"

"Don't even try."

"Yes, well. Now that all I have left is this broken body of mine, I find myself desiring a connection as well. And Nala, please listen. You're the only lion I have left. You have to listen to me. You have to advocate for me, because without you they'll kill me."

"Simba, wouldn't do that."

"Don't you understand," his voice rose, stinging against his injured throat. "He already tried. I don't want to say it like this, but the truth must come out. Simba killed his father, and he tried to kill me, because of his desire for power. It's all so clear, I can't believe how blind the pride is to his deception."

"I saw you admit your crime. I saw you say of your own will that you killed Mufasa."

"I know, I know," he said, "but he was going to kill me, what choice did I have. I said the thing that could save my life. And it was wrong of me. But I only condemned myself. I knew my brother would see the truth. He'd always been there for me. Why not one more time?" He wondered if she would believe his lie.

Nala regarded him with a look he couldn't read. It frightened him, he had to admit. Gaining the knowledge that they were related, that she could possess his own strongest abilities had changed the way he viewed her. The energy it had taken to stand to say those words, had left him exhausted, and through the pull of the medicinal herbs, he could feel the first throbbing pain. He wanted to spit at the pain. How dare it control him, how dare it interfere with his plans, and as long as he was breathing, he wouldn't give in to it. If he was going to have to fight his own body as well, so be it. He wanted all of his focus to be on Nala, and it was from the corner of his eyes, that he could see her tailing wisping back and forth across the stones. He felt giddy recognition seeing the same tick he possessed when deep in thought.

His mother could always tell when he was thinking, and would often suggest with a grin, that he should go outside and with his tail, sweep away the debris from the entrance to their cave, It seem to possess a life of its own when he was lost in his own thoughts.

"I can tell there's something bothering you." he said.

"What would you know," she snapped back.

"Really, I don't wish to upset you, I'm only concerned. Though you can't fault me. I've never been a father before, nor know how to act in the role of one. The fault I suppose rests on my capricious nature, I see it in you as well."

You don't know me," she said.

She was doing what he was trying to do. She was extracting things from him, like a lion pulling porcupine quills from a naughty cub. He had the sudden desire to lean closer, to catch more of himself in her. How strange it was; He had never thought he would feel something akin to admiration for her, but the emotion seemed inverted to him, as if in seeing his characteristics in her, reflected not a love for his offspring, but a love for himself. Did parents love in such a way that wasn't egotistical? The thought was new to him, did all love stem from a desire to see ones best qualities in their loved ones, not viewing them as autonomous beings, but connected entities. So distracted by this thought he lost his point, only a stab of pain in his leg, bringing him back to the cave, and his daughter. If she was no more than an extension of himself, she would prove useful. He would need to tame those other elements that belonged to Sarafina. He needed the Nala that was all him.

"What did you see in my mother?" she said. "Why her?"

"A capricious whim," he said with a glance of his paw.

She drew her claws, but sat still.

He had upset her. "I'll tell you the truth, but I don't know if it's what you want to hear. But first, before we talk anymore, I need you to promise that you'll advocate for me." She didn't say anything.

"If Simba sees it in his heart of hearts to spare me, he can't exile me, until I've had the chance to recover my strength. I would have left already if it wasn't for this damn leg. You can't possibly think I would want to stay in this hell. Even a deposed king can tell when he's no longer wanted, and it's best to adventure to brighter savannas. "I know you can see it Nala. The way he's cracking under pressure. Simba suffered greatly on the day of the stampede it destroyed something in him, weakened his constitution, his mind." A metaphor would do nicely here, he thought. "A broken branch can stay on a tree, but it can never regrow, and the lightest weight will snap it completely."

"You know nothing about him."

"And neither do you. You know that. Years and years exist between you. How can you know him, when he was changed by that experience, and grew with such angst at his foundation into the lion he is now. He's damaged. He's in no way fit to be King."

"The great kings are with him. "

Her words caught him off guard, his own catching in his throat, a small hiccup that sent a shudder down his spine.

"That's something you will never be able to say about yourself," Nala said.

"No matter, I never thought hearing voices was a sign of sanity anyways," he said, tensing.

"You don't have that connection, and you never will, not after the things you done."

"I've done NOTHING WRONG!" His heart pounded in his ears, and his back leg throbbed, he breathed heavily, seeing spots, and shook his head trying to clear them.

Nala had stood up and was heading towards the entrance.

"Wait," he said, and he hated how desperate it sounded.

"I can't listen to anymore of this," she said, her voice soft and low, a threat in the darkness. And he felt his own chance at survival slipping away. He fumbled, found himself floundering, sifting through ideas, as she grew ever closer to the exit.

"Ask Simba about that day. The stampede. You'll see there's something wrong. You'll see he isn't fit to rule."

She was gone, and he was left alone in the darkness, only his own fast, wheezing breathes to keep him company. He heard talking, but couldn't make out her words. She spoke to the lioness outside the cave, and he pulled himself over to the shelf of rock where he used to sleep as a cub, close to his parents, Mufasa's own piece of rock always a little higher than his. He collapsed on to it.


	12. Chapter 12

Later that evening, to his chagrin, Rafiki entered the cave followed closely by Simba. Scar looked up from where he lay, the cave spinning with the movement. Rafiki peeled back the bandage, and inspected his work.

"My head," he managed to say, his voice weird to his own ears. He might have considered even a kind word to Simba if it meant that the cave would stop its sickening rotations.

"It must be bad, if that's the only quip I'm getting from you today," Rafiki said, "but your leg is healing better than I could have hoped. There is no infection."

"What's wrong with him," Simba said from the entrance of the cave. "I want him out of here by tonight."

"He needs water," Rafiki said. "Someone will have to get him down to the watering hole. Now, Scar can you stand?"

"Of course I can stand," Scar spat and lurched to his feet. If he had eaten anything it would have come up again. The sensation was akin to that dizzying roll down Pride Rock, and being able to only place weight on three of his legs, wasn't helping him find his balance.

"You may have knocked something loose in all the activity you've been up to," Rafiki said. "But I suspect a large part of your dizziness is resulting from dehydration." He turned to Simba, "Get him to the watering hole or you're going have one shriveled up lion on your hands." He chortled.

"He can make it on his own," Simba said, still refusing to enter the cave.

Scar hissed. "Of course I can make it on my own. I never asked for your help."

"Good. I wasn't offering," his nephew replied.

Scar took an unsteady step towards the cave entrance. The ground under his paw seemed to bubble outwards one moment and then shrink back, as if he were attempting to walk across a great sifting pit of sand. He could feel the places where he had connected with the outcropping ridges of Pride Rock when Simba tossed him over the side. Each stab of pain made him angrier, and when he got to Simba he was ready to kill him, standing there, straight backed, and a look of amusement on his face. He was enjoying this, watching his decrepit uncle have to crawl from the cave like some slimy thing coming into the light. He knew, though, if he lifted a paw to him, that would be it, there was no way he could stay upright.

"You're nothing like your father," Scar said. "Don't even pretend." He stepped out of the cave.

The pride followed him with their eyes as he moved down the precipice of Pride Rock. He could see them from their caves, their paws bathed in sunlight. Simba trailed behind him. As he moved, his head began to clear. It must have the cave that had muddled his thoughts. As he moved across the savanna at his slow pace, his nephew spoke quietly with Rafiki.

"How soon?" Simba asked.

"A few more days, at least," Rafiki replied.

"If your debating my fate, consider doing it out of my hearing range," Scar said. "If I have any say in the matter, I'd prefer not to me made into the royal throw rug."

"That would be too good for you," Simba said, raising his voice.

Scar sucked in the water, not realizing until that point just how thirsty he really was. And once he was sated, he remained in the spot, trying to overhear Simba and Rafiki. A scent from beyond the watering hole pulled him away. Blood? He looked up. The scent mingled with the stench of the hyenas. He miss-stepped, "Great Kings!," he swore when he stepped back on his bad foot. He looked for his former cohorts. The scene though fresh, was at least a few hours old. Simba was talking to Rafiki, seemingly unware of the scent, his voice low, and fast.

Scar narrowed his eyes. The blood didn't smell like it had come from a hyena. A lion, he thought. What an idiot his nephew was, he must have Mufasa's sense of smell, because the odor was enough to send off some pretty powerful alarm signals for Scar. If he was in Simba's place, he would be concerned. He could use this information. Perhaps, revealing this information to him would be seen as a first redeeming step.

"Simba," he said, and then repeated it a little louder when he didn't look up. Are you the king or not, he thought. Instead he said, "There's a scent over here." If you were paying attention, or even had the capability to focus, you would have already noticed it.

"What kind of scent?" Simba said.

Well, you idiot fur-ball, why don't you come over here and find out for yourself? He thought. "Some of my friends turned enemy, I believe."

Simba looked up with some concern and finally went over to where Scar had his nose to the ground. "It smells like blood."

"Yes, very astute," he said, and rolled his eyes.

"It smells like you," Simba said.

"It's not though, didn't your father teach you anything," he said before he could stop himself.

Simba flashed him a mouthful of teeth. But, surprisingly, didn't reply. He lifted his nose from the ground and scanned the horizon. Scar followed his line of vision, trying to see against the glow of the sun setting the savanna on fire. He blinked his eyes against the light and saw, in the distance, a small black form. It could have been the waving of the long grass in the warm breeze, or the sun spots, because when he blinked again it was gone. "Did you see it," Scar said. Simba trotted forward and stretched out his neck as if he could peer farther.

"Hyenas. I should let them have you," Simba said.

"I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't me that they want."

"It's just a scent it could be old. After the fighting, after what you did to the Pridelands, I wouldn't be surprised if their scent never leaves."

"You know it's not. Tell me your sense of smell isn't in that sorry of a state. It's much too strong to be anything but a few hours old." He was struck by these words, as if he'd had this conversation before, and he was sure the same thing had passed at one point between himself and Mufasa. Mufasa's sense of smell was laughable at best, at worst he used to think it might mean his death. But it hadn't been that. It was this cub. Some deluded part of him latched on to that thought, and wanted it to be true, even though he knew he had orchestrated his brother's death.

When the plan had been a success, he hadn't doubted. He had been proud of his achievements, his dream of becoming king realized. That had been in the beginning when the Pridelands had still been verdant, and alive. As time had passed, and the grass had wilted, turned brown, bristled, and broke, and withered into the dry cracked ground, he had begun to seek someone else to blame - and sometimes when he was really hungry, or Zazu wouldn't shut his trap, or the hyenas would come to the cave entrance and complain – sometimes, he found he could believe that Simba had caused the whole thing.

He had been the one to orchestrate it, and Scar was little more than a pawn in his game. It was fleeting really. How embarrassing it would be to be outsmarted by a cub, even hypothetically. It was better in that sense that he should take the blame upon himself. But he found it in his nature to want to blame someone else for his misfortune. It was in those moments that he almost missed Mufasa. Of course, he could never say it aloud. These ambivalences that he had never felt before caused him to stand and pace, agitated, and confused, and a horrible headache growing behind his eyes in the days of famine.

His days were filled with ennui, anxiety, and hunger, and they all seemed to flow into each other, until it was all one expanse; a grim, sunless existence, and discarded bones filling his cave. He would gnaw on them trying to abate the hunger that was ever present. And he couldn't understand what had gone wrong. The sky was always covered in clouds. They never broke. They never opened. Sometimes, the wind would howl at night, so loud, echoing through the cave, and in his sleep it would become a great roar that reverberated through the stone and into himself, grabbed ahold of him, and would not let him go, leaving him frazzled and anxious. He snapped at the hyenas, bullied the lionesses, and his kingdom dried up along with the watering hole. A small muddy puddle.

He watched Simba, wondering what his next move would be. Scar would mount a defensive. This was a problem that needed to be solved now and right away before it escalated. It was best to squelch their blood lust before they had the opportunity to plan. He suspected that Shenzi had a plan. She was plotting something and would enact it soon, if she hadn't already. His nephew would have to be swift with is actions. He could either attempt to form another truce, or better yet, Simba would have the ability to rally the lionesses. Prepare for battle.

They would do anything for the son of their fallen golden king, and if that meant genocide of the hyenas they would do it. And there it was. That was how he would win them over. He would fight alongside Simba. Scar knew the hyenas better than anyone, had known them most of his life. Shenzi particularly, and though at times she proved infuriatingly inscrutable, he knew her weakness. She cared too much. The hyenas were her family. They were a tight knit community, more than any other he had ever known. Lions were disposed to pride, trying to act as a unit never worked as well as it should have. Someone's ego almost always got in the way. But hyenas were different. They worked in groups. If he could prove himself by being useful, by saving the pride, perhaps he could be forgiven.

If he could get Nala to believe his story that Simba was framing him then the rest of the pride would be drawn to his side. He would need to make Simba look both heroic, and mad in the same instant. If Simba were to die in battle with the hyenas then Scar would be back in power. He would be loved. He would be celebrated as the savior king; his strong, but damaged nephew falling to save his kingdom, and passing on the position to his uncle who had done everything in his power to save his life.

An electricity ran through his fur, and the thought of the plan made his heartbeat fast, took away the tiredness and even the ache from his cuts and bruises; gave him something that he hadn't felt in such a long time, hope, a plan, something to work towards. Because when thinking, plotting, doing, he was the happiest. It was only after he achieved what he wanted that normalcy took over and robbed him of those feeling. This time it would be different. He would win the kingdom and they would adore him.


	13. Chapter 13

A few weeks passed. Scar returned to the ledge that he often slept on when his brother had been in power, distanced from the outcropping projection of Priderock by a winding path. He would still sense at odd times someone watching him, and he knew that Simba had instructed the lionesses to keep an eye on him.

He rarely saw Simba. He had been making frequent visits to the watering hole and sometimes Scar would see him from far away, his red mane standing out against the rest of the golden field. Green was returning to the Pridelands. From where he lay he could see how it started around the edge of the water and then moved outwards until it covered the savanna.

Simba let him stay because of his injury. By pointing out the hyenas and providing the suggestion that they might cause a threat, he had effectively given himself another chance; Had in some way proven himself useful to Simba, though it wasn't hard to tell that his nephew was deeply distrustful of him. When they did speak and it was rare, it would be a one or two word exchange.

As soon as he recovered enough Simba had stated clearly that Scar would need to find his own food. He had been permitted to live on the grounds but was essentially in an unstated form of exile. He had overheard Rafiki say that with the injury to his leg, he would essentially be lame. His ability to hunt would be greatly impaired. In light of this, Simba's declaration seemed little more than a death sentence. For the past few days, Nala had been bringing him food. At first she had refused to speak to him and then one day when she dropped off a gazelle leg, he stopped her.

"Nala," he said. She turned away. "Nala, thank you," he said and looked at the hunk of meat. He wanted to question her if she had spoken to Simba, but he thought in order to get the answers he wanted a direct approach wasn't the best tactic. "You're the only lion I ever see these days," he said and stretched in the sunlight.

"Are we lonely?" Nala asked.

Something seemed different about her. She wasn't nearly as emaciated as she had been before. All of the pride was starting to fill out again. "You look tired," he said. He could tell he had caught her off guard.

"Well, you don't want to hear my impression of you." But she didn't leave.

"Oh please, a critic is only jealous."

She laughed. The sound was clear and high, genuine, he thought. But she cut it off quickly, like she hadn't meant to let it escape and almost looked as surprised as he felt.

"Though really, is that nephew of mine causing you undue stress?" he asked.

And for a minute he thought she might speak to him. She opened her mouth and then closed it and shook her head.

"I understand if you don't want to speak to me. But I was thinking. Really it's all I have time to do now." He said and stifled a yawn. "And I remembered a game that my mother taught me, you're grandmother Uru. A game that she taught only to Mufasa and me. For posterity. I thought you might be interested."

She tilted her head and narrowed her eyes.

"We all played it together, Mufasa, Sarabi, …Sarafina."

"A game?" she said.

"Yes," he said. "Strategy." It requires pebbles though. My mother had her own set, but I couldn't even fathom where that might be now. She said she collected them down by the watering hole, so I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to replicate. "

"What's it called," she said.

He had her interest, and he fought the urge to show his teeth. "Bao," he said.

"And how many stones would it take?" she said.

"Thirty-two for each of us."

From his ledge it was possible to view the outcropping section of Pride Rock, and he followed her gaze in that direction.

"Is something bothering you?" he asked. "I recognize that look," he said.

"Oh you do? Please, what do I look like?"

"Dissatisfied," he said.

"I suppose that is an expression you would know well," she shot back. "I have to get back," she said.

"You'll look for those stones?"

"I don't know," she said. But he had a feeling that it was still a possibility.

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Scar stretched and winced at the pain in his leg. He stood slowly, achingly, and made the slow trek down the side of Pride Rock. In the early morning the lionesses slept. When he looked up, he saw Simba surveying the Pridelands. The morning was still dim, the sun barely peaking over the horizon, and the night bled upwards, purple, and orange, fading into a new day. He could feel Simba's eyes as he moved through the tender sprigs of new grass. He tested his back foot periodically, and let out a hiss of pain each time as the bones in his leg ground together, refusing to fully support his weight. At least for the time being Nala would continue to bring him food, but in the future if he couldn't use his leg, there would be no way that he could hunt for himself. As he grew closer to the watering hole, even before he caught the scent, he found his fur standing on end. He turned around swiftly, staggering - his balance thrown off, but didn't see anything.

The scent was much stronger than the other day. Hyenas were close by or had been just moments before. Above it all was that scent of rot, stronger even than before - clearly lion blood. He stood frozen, feeling exposed in the wide prairie. His legs shook, and he cowered against the idea of having to face the hyenas again. He wanted to retreat, to run, but to do so would leave him even more vulnerable. Right now he had a clear view of the fields. Nothing moved. His leg protested as he lowered himself into a pouncing position. Only the tip of his mane, and his eyes were visible above the swaying grass. He scanned the savanna, fighting the pounding of his heart, forcing himself to stay where he was. It was strange that the scent of blood was so pungent and yet he couldn't see it anywhere, it lingered in the air so strongly that it made him want to choke. It was a signal: leave this place for it is haunted.

He shivered and fought the image of his brother that was pulling at his senses. He shook his head, cursing the thought, and slunk forward through the grass. At the shore of the watering hole he looked down into the water. Under the scar on his left eye, Simba's mark was dark and crusted; three slashes that started near his snout and went upwards stopping at the edge of his mane.

The scent grew stronger the closer he drew, and he looked up once again scanning the horizon, trying to make out any shapes. A breath of heat rustled the fur on his shoulder and he spun around, but no one was there. He lapped from the lake quickly, but kept his eyes on the horizon, his fur on edge. He retreated back to his cave, looking to the precipice of Pride Rock, but Simba was gone.

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"It could be nothing," Simba said to Nala. "The Pride lands have barely had time to return to how they were. It would make sense if that scent lingered." He wanted to know what Nala felt, but recently she had been distancing herself. And he was doing his best to understand. Of course, though, he knew the reason. Scar. Everything always came back to his uncle. And allowing him to live, allowing him to remain in the Pridelands until his injuries had healed enough for him to scrounge on his own, was quickly becoming a decision that Simba regretted. But what could he have done?

Showing mercy was what a good king would do, and those three marks he had added to Scar's face were more than enough to remind Simba that he didn't want to be the other kind. Knowing that that anger existed within him, knowing that the predisposition to hurt a weak, defenseless lion tore at him. But Scar had a way with words. As sharp as any claws. Almost the same as being raked down the back. And more to prove to himself that he wasn't the same kind of lion as Scar, he had decided to show mercy, but his magnanimous gesture was now starting to wear thin, and the haunted look in Nala's expression made him want to do rid of Scar right then and there.

"Did you settle the problem with the elephants," she asked.

"Yes, they weren't too happy to find their territory overrun by vultures, but we came to an agreement in the end."

"One you think they'll uphold?"

"We'll just have to see," he said exasperated. "Are you okay, Nala?" he said, growing more concerned by her appearance. In the sunlight, he could see how her eyes were puffy, her coat dull.

"I'm just tired," she said. "It's been quite a change."

"You were happier under Scar's rule?" He hated the words the moment he said them.

"No," she said, her ears sticking straight up, "Why would you think that?"

"Nothing," he said. "I can't talk. I'm not bright eyed and bushy-tailed either. It's hard work trying to get everything back in order."

"Well, we knew it wasn't going to be simple."

"I'm not complaining, Nala. It's just- I know I did the right thing, I can see that now, but coming out of exile, leaving the life I had made for myself with Timon and Pumba, it's been hard to adjust to."

"You didn't want to be king anymore when you were with them? You didn't think about it even once? That's not the Simba I grew up with."

"No, of course, I still wanted to be king. But after the day in the gorge, after what Scar did-," he said with a low growl.

"Simba, he told me something," she said after a moment, like perhaps this was the thing that had been weighing her down. He tensed his muscles, feeling his adrenaline course through his body, as if it was Scar before him and not Nala. And in a way, and he couldn't believe he would think it, but in a way they were similar. It hadn't been until Scar had said Nala was his daughter, but the thought, he couldn't get it out of his head. Nala was Scar's daughter? Part of Nala was part of Scar?

It had made him sick, but he still loved her. He couldn't deny that. But the feeling was polluted by that connection. He hated himself for feeling that way. This was Nala, his best friend, the lion he loved, the one he saw growing older with, starting a family. Their cubs would continue to rule. But a part of him feared that their cubs would be just as bloodthirsty and ruthless and uncaring as the uncle he despised. To blame Nala for that connection was unthinkable. The more he seemed to fight it, the more the conviction grew within until sometimes he couldn't even look at her. Other times he found he could push it aside, when he recognized the lioness from his childhood; Smiling, laughing, giving him the correct advice when he would start to get lost in his thoughts, pulling him back when he would start to despair. He could cast away all of the ugly thoughts that came to him at night when Nala slept next to him.

He would think of his father and see him in the gorge. He would gasp and claw at the rocks in his sleep. If Simba had ran just a little faster, jumped higher, he could have gotten out of the gorge. If he had been braver, hadn't called his dad down into the wildebeest he would still be alive. Simba would awake, gasping, and have to stand and move before the sensation overtook him. He would go to the watering hole and gulp mouthfuls of cold water. If he submerged himself completely and let it wash over him, the chill would take away all of his thoughts and give him some peace. But now the very present scent of hyenas pervaded that area. Yet, they were never seen. It infuriated him. It scared him; This invisible enemy with only their scent to place them. It had to be a mind game, a warning.

"Simba," Nala said, "Are you listening to me?"

He snapped his head upwards, and looked at her. "Sorry," he said. "What were you saying?"

"I was talking about Scar. But what I wanted to ask you was if you've seen my mother."

"Sarafina?" he asked. And he looked over the pride lands, trying to spot the lionesses that would be returning from the hunting ground later. "She's not out hunting."

"No," she said. "Simba, I'm getting worried. It's been two days, and no one's seen her. It's not like her to leave. "

"Have you been talking to her?"

"I haven't," she said. "I was angry. I couldn't believe she didn't tell me. I didn't even notice she was gone. But I'm really worried Simba, I looked everywhere I couldn't find her. I can't find her scent. Sarabi doesn't know where she went either. Do you think she's okay?" Nala asked.

"I'm sure she is."

"I think she must be as upset as I was. I keep thinking that maybe she just needed time on her own to sort it all out, but I didn't mean to act like that. I was just-"

"I'm sure she understands."

"I don't know Simba. How could she keep that from me?"

"I think she wanted to protect you. Come on. She'll come back when she's ready."

"But the blood-"

"It's old. It's Scar's fault. The smell of the hyenas. It's a reminder to me that he's still with us."

Nala nodded slowly, but he could tell she doubted him. They all doubted him. And he turned away, seeing in her all the things he didn't need. And the fear that maybe that blood did belong to one of them, nettled now in his mind. He couldn't acknowledge it. Sarafina would come back. She would be all right.


	14. Chapter 14

The days bled into one another; the sun rising and falling in a fiery arch. From Scar's ledge, he heard Simba let out a loud roar. A group of nesting birds shot into the air, and he watched as the lionesses slunk through the grass, returning from their hunt. It was a call to meet but he stayed where he was. His back leg had been aching more than normal this morning and putting weight on it sent a fiery pain all along the muscle.

A slow movement over by the waterhole caught his eye. He blinked, narrowing his eyes and moved as close as he could to the edge of the cliff. Hyenas. The lionesses were oblivious as the wind must have been in the mutts' favor. In-between the four hyenas a lioness limped. He could see that her coat was bloody. So that was who the scent of blood had come from, he thought.

He moved even closer to the edge until his front paws were hanging over and tried to make out who it was. One of Simba's pride? And then with what felt like a smack to his snout he realized it was Sarafina. It could have been Nala, but he could see her standing next to Simba on Priderock in deep discussion with the other lionesses. He wondered if, perhaps, the watering hole incident was what they were discussing. If perhaps Sarafina was the topic of their meeting. And then before he could move, even before he had a moment to think of how he could work this into his plan, the hyenas moved and he saw all three attack at once. It was over in an instant. Sarafina dropped to the ground.

The hyenas tore away, their coats moving through the green and brown grasses. He stared wide-eyed, not believing. They had killed her. Something stirred in him that he couldn't name. It welled up in his chest, made him bare his teeth, draw his claws, so that when he did stand he didn't feel the burn in his leg. Had she cried out? He didn't know, but from his spot he could see the lions that had gathered on Priderock were now moving in a frenzy.

He heard a cry from the top of the rock that sounded like Nala and all in unison they moved from the cliff face and descended down the mountain. They gathered around the watering hole and formed a wide circle around Sarafina.

His heart beat quickly. They would suspect him, he thought. They wouldn't be thinking; they would want someone to blame and he was the only one who hadn't been at the meeting. He backed up, his tail lashing. Staying here didn't guarantee his innocence. They might think that he was still working with the hyenas that this had been part of his plan.

He heard the anguished roar above everything else and it quieted everything; the savanna seeming to mourn with the pride.

The hyenas had wanted his attention, he thought. It had been meant not only as a warning to the pride, but a clear message to him. Shenzi, he thought. Shenzi must have known about Nala. Shenzi must have known about Sarafina. And the urge to run hit him strongly.

He could see Nala below pacing fiercely back and forth and Simba standing by the body, his head bowed, frozen. And Scar looked to the steep drop off of the ledge. Really, the only way down was to descend near the precipice of Priderock, but he tested the ledge anyway, moving his paws forward so they rested near its edge. He could see a few footholds and a shelf of stone maybe ten feet down that he might be able to get to. He looked back over his shoulder, Simba was now trying to keep up with Nala's pacing. She shook her head from side to side and roared again.

Simba looked in Scar's direction. He had to jump. If he could make it to the ledge then he could get down from there but where would he go, he thought. He couldn't outrun them. He needed to calm down. If he could convince them of his innocence, if he was as just broken up about it as them, if he could demonstrate to Simba that he would be useful in a fight against the hyenas, he might just be valuable enough to keep alive. He would have to wait for them to come to him. He couldn't throw any suspicion upon himself. He must seem completely oblivious to the discovery.

With his heart still pounding, he crawled back into the shadows and dropped to the ground, turning so his back leg didn't hurt and closed his eyes, slowing his breathing. Soon, he heard rocks being kicked up, clattering and pinging as they bounced off of the cliff wall. Scar lifted his head as Simba rounded the corner with a roar.

He opened his eyes, taking in Simba's appearance: blood coated his paw, his eyes were wild, his mane blown backwards with the speed with which he had run from the watering hole. Scar turned lazily, but careful not to expose his underside.

"Ah, Simba, having a bad day?" he said.

Simba let out a hoarse breath, his fur bristling, his paw raised, but now Scar could see there was a hint of uncertainty in his eyes.

"Successful hunt then, was it?" Scar asked and gestured towards Simba paw.

As if seeing the blood for the first time Simba took a step back. "Sarafina," he said at last. "What do you know about what happened at the watering hole," the words were growled.

Scar knew this was his one chance to prove himself free of guilt. He would need to choose his words carefully. "What do you mean? Did you find her?" he sat up. "She's okay?" he said and then making sure that Simba saw his eyes lock on the blood, he said, "No." He took a step back. "No." He shook his head. "It can't be. You mean, she's dea-"

"Murdered," Simba said.

"Murdered?," Scar repeated. "It can't be." And even as he pretended, he felt something akin to sorrow, something foreign welling up in his chest. And it wasn't part of the act. In the fear of discovery, Sarafina's death hadn't struck him. But now, it was a deep ache he couldn't quantify.

And to his horror, the feeling robbed him of his faculties. He looked at the ground struggling to find his next words. Mixed in with the revulsion and the deep loss, a flame seemed to grow and feed. He pushed past Simba, brushing him aside. He descended Pride Rock and moved with a speed he didn't know he still possessed over to the watering hole and stopped in front of Sarafina's body. The whole place stank of hyenas. It pervaded the grass and he looked at the lion at his feet. Her eyes were open, a deep bloody bite to her throat, and he put paw against her side. She was still warm. Her body was covered in scratches and bites and contusions. Some were old and scabbed over. Judging from how they were starting to heal she had been with the hyenas since she had gone missing. He let out a deep ragged breath. Nala lay nose-to-nose with her mother.

"Nala, " he said, but she didn't move, her eyes were locked on the horizon and it was if she hadn't heard him. In between her shallow breathing he could hear her murmuring.

"Sarabi," he hissed over his shoulder. "Did you see what happened?"

"She can't be dead," Sarabi said. "I don't believe it. We were just hunting together a few suns ago, and..." her voice trailed away.

"But she is dead," he said, "and I need to know what happened."

"You mean, you don't know?" Nala said from the ground and lifted her head. She pushed herself up slowly. "You mean you weren't watching the whole time from up on your ledge?" she said and stood to look him in the eyes. "I'm sure you saw everything." He took a step back despite himself, caught off- guard by her perception.

"It was the hyenas," he said. "I can smell it everywhere." The fur on his back prickled. His heart hammered under his fur like the pounding of a thousand antelope hooves.

"Under whose orders," she said and moved forward, her tail lashing back and forth.

"You think I would side with those fleabags after what they tried to do to me," he snarled. "You think I would want anything to do with them? That I would have them hurt her?" he said, and though a part of him wanted to look away, he continued to hold her gaze. Her claws were drawn, her features twisted, her teeth showing, but he kept calm, and his eyes darted to the side trying to capture a glimpse of Sarafina once again. "Don't look at her," Nala said.

And instead he looked to the ground because in Nala, he could see her mother. Their features were so similar and to think that he was any part of her had been a mistake. All he could see in Nala was Sarafina, her conviction, her strength, her will, and it almost bowled him over, burrowed within the emptiness of knowing she was dead and gone, murdered by his once and only ally, and these emotions were so foreign to him that he was struck dumb and couldn't think of a single thing to say; a single action to extricate himself, and when he next looked up after what had seemed to be minutes, Nala had retracted her claws, had closed her eyes and was swaying dangerously on her feet.

All he could think to do was steady her, to use his own broken and scarred body to keep her from falling, and he planted himself firmly next to her and felt her weight against his side, her fur warm, and he realized in that moment that she was all he had left; Sarafina and Nala had only ever really been the two things in his life that had belonged to him, and he had treated them as if they didn't matter, as if they were disposable tools that would always be at his beck and call for whenever he needed them.

His daughter leaned heavily against his side, and he wondered if she was about to collapse. Though his fur bristled and every nerve in his body urged him to go after the hyenas, he remained where he was next to her.

"Nala," he said quietly and nudged her head. Hadn't he only wanted to matter? Hadn't he only wanted someone to look to him, to depend upon him and here she was leaning against him choosing him over everyone in the pride; all the lionesses she had grown up, everyone she had known. Maybe he had been the closest thing, maybe she was delirious, either way she had chosen him, her father. Something lifted within him and even with his damaged leg he could support her. Someone looked up to him, someone needed him. And perhaps it was still that egotistical adoration, he didn't know, but it felt different, something that extended outside of himself that he couldn't put a paw on.

And with slow steps he led her away from the watering hole. All the while she stayed next to him, her head leaning against his shoulder, her feet dragging, and when her knees would buckle, he would lean lower, supporting her until she was able to get her feet back under her, and they would continue the slow move back towards Priderock.

For once there was no thought in it, he didn't do it for any other reason than she needed him to be there; without him she would fall, and he kept his line of sight only forward enough to see the next step. His paw and then hers. Dark fur and then light fur. His own still burnt to black, mingled with grays, and then hers creamy, unmarred. Another paw came into his vision and halted their movement. He looked up to see Simba, his face twisted in anger. "Get away from her," Simba said and growled.

"She'll fall," Scar said.

"I'll help her. You've done enough," he spat and Simba pushed Scar out of the way.

How cold it was even under the pale sun without her next to him. His limbs were shaking, and he gasped for air as Simba led her away. He felt so lost, more lost than he ever had in his life, alone in that field surrounded on either side by the pride he failed. Sarafina, who had died because he had lived, and Nala, the only thing he had made that was worth something and both of them now gone - out of his reach. And the emotions were a maelstrom that wiped out all logical thought, something he had never fathomed, and he was overcome trying to navigate them with no idea of how to. It was so foreign to him that maybe only the death of his mother had elicited something close to this, but that had been years and years ago, and he had been a cub - one that wasn't completely in control of his emotions at that point and had been struck stupid by the grief he had felt at Uru's loss; no idea how to cope with such devastation.

And now that feeling had returned. It had to be overcome. It was a weakness that robbed him of his intelligence, that stripped him of any semblance of wit, rendered him dumb and lost.


	15. Chapter 15

"I'll kill them," Sarabi said moved with a speed that belied her age.

"Wait," Scar said and limped after her.

She stopped and scowled. "You did this. In some way you are responsible. I don't need or want your help."

"You'll take on a whole army by yourself?" he said. "It's suicide."

And then as if an idea came to her she slowed and looked at him. "We'll give them what they want." The rest of the pride came to surround him. He lurched back, realizing their intent.

"You don't know what they want," he said. "It's not only me." His tail lashed as they formed a circle around him. It was a stupid move on the part of the hyenas, he thought. Any chance of negotiation they may have had with Simba was now a moot point with the murder of Sarafina. If it had been just to get revenge, just to see him torn to pieces by the pride or he suspected as Shenzi thought to have him delivered to them, it had been a plan made myopically. Was his death really that much of a priority to them that they would risk any future peaceful involvement with the PrideLands? Or perhaps, it had been a sign: look how easily we killed one of your pride. What's to stop us for killing you all, taking over? It was Shenzi who would be leading the army. Shenzi was quick-witted and this latter idea was most likely what she had in mind.

"Don't go," he said, ignoring the angry growl from the circle that surrounded him. "That's what they want," he said. "There are hundreds of them, and twenty of you, the odds are greatly against any one of you surviving."

"You survived," Sarabi said. "Like you always do."

"It was luck and a little thinking. I was able to reach Shenzi. She's their leader now, and she won't be as easy to reach this time.

"I can do it," Sarabi said. "We're growing stronger by the day and they weaker. They don't stand a chance."

"You're being a fool, Sarabi," he said. She lashed out at him, and he barely avoided her claws.

"Don't talk back to me. Not now, not anymore," she said.

"Please, listen to me," and he heard the words as if they weren't this own as if they came from somewhere else. He didn't beg. He didn't grovel. But everything had veered so far from his initial plan that he had lost his trajectory, as if the ground had torn open leaving a wide gaping hole and the answer eluded him. They didn't trust him. They wouldn't listen to him. Wouldn't heed anything he said. And yet, regaining his power would be pointless if everyone were dead. If he survived, and he doubted he would, he would be in the same position of exile, a lame, aging lion, with no pride, with no mate, with no daughter, and it suddenly wasn't a game of kings, but one of survival, and he knew he had to change his plan, adapt once more to the situation. If it meant allowing Simba his place in his throne for the time being that was how it would have to be. They needed someone to push them in the right direction, to break it down into a logical maneuver that they could then enact. They couldn't go charging in fueled by emotions. They would be slaughtered.

"Listen," he said. He looked to Sarafina. And the words were hard to find. Never before had such emotion clouded his logic and it was hard to see through the haze, to project the power into his voice, to make himself the authority he had always wished to be when ruling.

"Why should we listen to you?" Sarabi said. "What good have you ever done?" Her voice approaching a roar, guttural and thick with emotion. "Because of you I've lost two of the closest friends I've ever had. They're gone, Taka," she said. "Don't you realize that? They're gone."

Taka. The word threw him. Took him back to when they were cubs. Mufasa pulling him to the side of the miniature Pride Rock where he, Sarafina, and Sarabi all played. "Look what will be ours one day," his brother said in imitation of Ahadi. Their father had given them a similar speech the other day. Brought them to the tip of Pride Rock and had them look out over the savanna.

"You mean, yours."

"You'll always be by my side, Taka," Mufasa said and nudged him with his shoulder. For once, he didn't know what to say. Just looked to his big brother, his fur as golden as the sun sending it's rays across the vast savanna and his as dark as the night that replaced it when the sun disappeared, and he remembered then that he had thought, maybe there was a place for both of them. It had been before Ahadi declared that Mufasa would be the next king.

When Mufasa couldn't draw him out of his thoughts Sarafina often could. There was a gentleness to her, but also a strength; she didn't challenge his position, but she also knew how to talk to him in a way that didn't infuriate him like almost every else did. She had this way of getting under his fur that he couldn't explain. Like she knew everything about him when he thought he must have appeared inscrutable. He didn't understand it but it made him want to know her. Want to know how she could tell so much about him, his thoughts, his feelings, what was causing his unease, without him ever having to open his mouth. It was like the sixth sense that Mufasa said Rafiki believed in. Some lions just knew things. Some animals could see into the future. Some animals knew what would happen. But Rafiki said it was rare in lions: they lived too close to the present and their tempers kept them from introspective thought.

Scar had wondered what kind of creature he really was then because all he did was introspect, but then again he often did feel different from the other lions, and he wondered if that was part of the reason that his father overlooked him. He was too quiet, too calculated, too cowardly. But he found that didn't matter, he didn't need brute strength to get what he needed, already he found that he could manipulate his friends. He realized that he possessed a power different from his brother, one that seemed even more effective.

Sarabi waited for him to say something. "It's not a good idea," he said. "We need a plan. They may be stupid, but their advantage lies in their numbers. Enough to bring down all of us if we don't think this through." He moved to stop her progress. She stepped forward meaning to move away from him, but he intercepted her movement.

"I have to do something." she said. "I can't let them get away with this."

"And we won't," he said. "Sarabi," and for the first time in many months she caught his eye and held his gaze. "We'll do something," he said. Better than something. They would decimate them. He would lead them, gain their respect and take back the throne. But he was getting ahead of himself. For the moment he needed to rein everyone in. "Talk to-" he fumbled over the word, "the king," he said.

"Simba." Sarabi let out a long breath, the energy that fueled her seaming to dissipate, leaving her small and tired.

"Talk to your son," Scar said. That deluded furball. Where was he when order was being lost, his pride running amuck like ostriches with their heads cut off?

XXX

Simba led Nala back to the cave. She wouldn't look at him. She kept her eyes on the ground, her tail trailing in the dirt.

"Nala," he tried. But his words went unheeded. She continued to walk forward and only stopped when she came to the wall of the cave. And he noticed in her lack of movement, not so much a refusal to look at him, but it was if he wasn't even there.

She moved as if in a trance. Like an old exiled lion Rafiki had found wandering the plains when Simba was a cub. He wandered aimlessly, his coat gray and torn, obviously once a great king or a terrible tyrant but now rendered speechless, unknown. Rafiki tried to intervene, tried everything he knew, but he couldn't pull him back. He ate as if something told him to, drank, slept with always a vacant stare focused somewhere over the horizon, and then he passed through with that same slow pace away from the Pridelands and only the Great Kings knew to where.

The story had scared Simba in a way he couldn't understand as a cub, a great stretch of something before him- whispers in the shadows of the cave. If one lion could lose himself completely could it happen to him too? Could it happen to his Dad? To his mom? What it must have been like to be that lion all alone, no family, no name, nothing. And that darkness welled up inside of him. Nala. Where was she? Did she know herself? where had she gone?

"Nala," he tried again and stopped by her side. He nudged her shoulder with his head. "Nala, look at me. Come back," he said. "Please come back." But her stare remained focused on the cave wall. Simba turned in the same direction trying to see what she was seeing but it looked the same as ever: the stone gray and slightly damp. He put a paw against it -cold.

He was alone. It drove the air from his chest, made him take in deep gasps of air trying to quell it, trying to fight down the raising terror that made his fur stand on edge, made his eyes water, made the whole cave seem as if it was closing in on him. He pushed himself against Nala and rested his head against her back, and there, there was her heartbeat, there was the smallest rise and fall of her back as she breathed.

"Please, Nala," he said and licked her shoulder. "I need you. I need you. I know I haven't said it." And the words came so easily to him when she wasn't there to hear them. "I haven't said it because I've been afraid. I fear myself. I fear the things I think. I fear this anger I feel inside of me that shouldn't be there. I don't know what to do. " He whispered it so quietly that the words just ghosted across his teeth. "Nala." He whimpered. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I thought of you as anything, but yourself. I'm sorry I saw him in you when I was so afraid that he was a part of me too. Please, just come back, and I'll make everything right. I've been so lost," he said to the silence.

"Simba," he jolted and thought for a second that Nala had spoken, but when he looked at her she still had the same vacant expression. Instead, Sarabi entered the cave followed closely by Scar. The other lionesses stood outside talking among themselves. It took all the energy Simba had to part from Nala, and his bones seemed to have turned to brittle savanna grass that any little movement would break. "I don't know what's wrong with her," he said to his mother. "She won't move, she won't talk."

"She's in shock," Scar said.

"I didn't ask you." Something hot and molten was growing in his stomach. He refused to acknowledge Scar.

"Simba, we all need you right now," his mother said. He could hear the worry in her voice, taste it like old fetid meat. Here he was the king, and they had come to him for answers, and he could barely support himself, barely think beyond the situation.

"We need to organize," Scar said.

Simba continued to look at his paws. Scar took a step closer and Simba could see his paw from the corner of his eye.

"Simba, "he said, "we need to do something now before they make another move."

Here was Scar. This was his plan. He must have done it. He knew it would destroy Nala. It would destroy him if Nala wasn't by his side. The rage in him grew, licking at his throat, moving upwards as if setting his whole body aflame. It crowded out his thoughts, leaving nothing but sorrow for what he had lost, what Nala had lost, what the lion in front of him was inches from having. He drew his claws. He could hear his mother's voice somewhere beyond him, and something touched his shoulder. He backed away. He saw himself attacking his uncle.

"Simba, we need you," his mother said, and the words broke through and he let out a loud sobbing gasp of air, and all the rage sank back down below. He breathed, clearing his head. His mother was standing in front of him, her nose almost touching his. "We need you," she said slowly. Scar had taken a step back, and was closer to the entrance of the cave. Simba looked at his paws, his nails had dug into the floor leaving deep white gouges against the granite.


	16. Chapter 16

Rafiki couldn't awaken Nala. She stood motionless, her gaze locked on the stone of the cave. Two lionesses stood guard over Sarafina's body. Simba heard Scar's voice rising above the commotion, echoing through the cave and the others quieted as he spoke.

"There's been a heinous crime committed," he said. "The hyenas," and paused letting his words wash over the other lions. "The hyenas who destroyed our Pridelands, who devoured our food with their insatiable appetites have once again intruded on our land, taking something all the more precious and important: the life of one our pride."

Simba couldn't believe it, his audacity. The hyenas had been Scar's allies, he had let them in. He stepped out of the cave and came to stand next to Scar. "Stop talking," he said abruptly.

"Simba, it's been a rough day," Scar said.

The patronizing tone made him growl. Sarabi came to stand next to her son. "Scar has a plan," she said. He couldn't read his mother's voice. He wanted to know what she thought of that. Was it a good or a bad thing? And that he couldn't read her meaning worried him, made him think that she was siding with Scar, and all of sudden he had a feeling that they didn't trust him. They were looking at him askance, as if in some way he had been responsible for things that had happened. Worried, creased expressions. If he had gone looking for Sarafina as soon as Nala brought it to his attention maybe she would still be alive. They were saying he was inexperienced.

They were falling into normalcy. Scar had been their king for many seasons, it would be easy to listen to him, and he spoke in a way that Simba hadn't mastered. He drew attention, he guided, he convinced. He manipulated.

Simba felt that his protestations would be perceived as the mewling of a cub. That's how they saw him, a cub, not a leader, something to be pitied. But their eyes still lingered on him, waiting. He hadn't provided them any answers, so they were turning once more to his uncle.

xxxxx

Scar had seen his opportunity. Simba remained in the cave attempting to console Nala, while the lionesses gathered around Scar. "Simba is not fit to provide answers." Scar said. "He is too emotionally invested, clouded by his love, his emotions, and he doesn't have the experience. His knowledge of matters of life and death are lacking and that's why I propose that we create a plan to infiltrate and end the reign of terror the hyenas have been casting over us these last few years."

"And yes," he said, stopping the dialogue that had risen after his declaration. "I fell victim to their manipulation. I allowed them to live on our land, to use our resources until they were exhausted. For that, I will take the blame, but there are other things I will not." He said, his tail lashing behind him. He reveled in their attention. They watched him, everyone.

"And what do you propose?" Sarabi said and stepped forward. "Scar, you killed Mufasa. It doesn't matter if you have a plan. We will not listen to you. Because of you Sarafina is dead. If you had never sided with the hyenas none of this would have happened."

Mufasa, Mufasa, he thought, it always came back to his damn brother. Clearly, the doubt he had tried to implant in Nala hadn't taken, or she had kept the thoughts to herself, but they still believed in their child king. "Hindsight," he said. "I made a truce, a pact between two species that was meant to bring us together, that was meant to harbor peace and alliance between us."

"One that nearly destroyed us," Sarabi said.

"I made a questionable choice, but it's in the past." He needed to divert the topic back to the hyenas. "And now, I wish to correct my wrongs. I will free us from the fear they are attempting to impose upon us. We will avenge our own." He looked to them. "Would you like to know the truth?"

"If only that were a possibility," Sarabi said. "I fear anything you tell us cannot be trusted."

He took a step forward, his temper rising. "The hyena's were responsible for the stampede that killed Mufasa. Just before Shenzi was going to kill me, she revealed this to me."

Murmuring rose between the lionesses. "Why didn't she kill you?" Sarabi said. "If she spoke to you, how do we know this isn't a plan concocted between you two? A bid for power?" Scar had expected the question.

"Somehow you survived. Why was that?" Everyone murmured in agreement.

"I fought them," he said. "I fought them with everything I had," and the thought struck him. "It was as if Mufasa were by my side in that moment, giving me strength, pushing me forward. I heard his voice Sarabi, the Great Kings came to me with their wisdom, bid me to fight on, told me I was needed. They must have meant for this. They must have wanted me to stay to lead an attack against the hyenas, to save our pride. He couldn't think about that darkness of the night, and as the lie left him, he knew that a part of him wished that had been what had happened. And yet here he stood without the aid of the kings, of his own force, and will, and wit, he had survived something insurmountable, sure to kill any other lion in the same situation. Had Mufasa been by his side? The lie started to become the truth, insidious, slipping into the space between reality and conjecture within his own mind, lodging there, convincing him that maybe it was a possibility, even as he rebelled against the inscrutable spiritual world.

"Sarabi, Mufasa told me, 'Remember the maned flower,' I didn't know what he meant. He said only you would understand." The memory had come quickly to him, a past moment that he shared with Sarafina. A secret of Sarabi's that Sarafina had told him.

Sarabi stopped, her eyes growing wide. "How do you know..."

"I know because Mufasa told me. He trusts that I can lead you. He trusts that I have a solution. I knew in that moment that I had been given a second chance. That I had to stay against all threats to my life and protect the pride I grew up in. Sarabi, for this one time will you trust me? Will you work with me to avenge Sarafina?" The lie had come so easily, the whole story concocting itself in a flash and he had watched Sarabi's features change. The maned flower had thrown her, until that point she had most decidedly doubted him but now he could tell he had her. And if he had Sarabi, he had the rest of them. He tried to keep the grin from his face and continued to wait for her answer. He heard the padding of feet behind him and didn't have to turn to know that Simba now stood next to him.

Simba," Scar said, while ducking his head in mock submission, "I was just telling your mother of how Mufasa came to me. How he has instructed me to take back the Pridelands."

"You can't believe him," Simba said and stepped past Scar, stopping in front of his mother.

Sarabi remained silent, her eyes locked on her son. "He told me something that - that only Mufasa would have known. I believe him Simba."

Simba took a step back. It couldn't be true. If his mother believed him - the lion who had taken Mufasa from her - if she believed him, what did it mean, she was backing him, supporting him over her own son. He didn't know what to say.

"Scar," he said and turned to face his uncle. "Leave," he said and the anger building in his chest upon seeing his unaffected expression drew the roar from him. It boomed across Pride Rock and silenced the murmuring from the lionesses surrounding them.

"Simba," Sarabi said and ushered him to the side.

He didn't want to move, but the warmth of his mother next to him calmed him a bit. He was so exhausted underneath all of it, he kept thinking of Nala, of her vacant stare, that maybe he had lost her forever and it was all his fault.

Scar remained where he was and then turned back to the pride. "We need to plan immediately. Now I think we should split into teams based on strengths. "

As Simba followed his mother back from the crowd, Scar's words followed him. Scar was a better king, he hadn't been stupefied and incapable of acting, he had taken action, cut straight to the problem - was working on solving it.

"Simba ," Sarabi said and he lifted his head to catch her eyes. "Sarafina, she's gone," and the weight of the words seemed to weigh her down, and Simba for the first time noticed how old she had gotten. The gray hair around her paws and nose that he hadn't noticed before were evident in the sun cascading over the bracken. Her eyes were tired too, not as bright as he remembered, dull from years of exhaustion and toil and loss.

First her husband killed, then her son presumed dead, and then when maybe everything seemed like it might be okay, Sarafina - perhaps the only one who had been there for her during Scar's reign, her childhood friend - murdered. And he marveled at how she stayed composed, how he could only tell when he looked closely. And all of a sudden he despised himself for leaving for her, for seeking a life of ease when she had been left here alone. He slipped so easily into the bohemian life with Timon and Pumba that he rarely thought of his mother. He assumed she would despise him because Scar would have told what had happened in the gorge that day.

"Simba, I hate the idea as much as you. You must believe me." And he listened to her, biting back his words. He feared what he would say because he couldn't understand how she could align herself with Scar after everything, how she had forgiven him for what he had done.

"We don't need him," he said.

"I 'd like to say the same thing. But he knows the hyenas better than any of us. He's known them since he was a cub. If we stand any chance at defeating them, we need him. I hate it as much as you. I hate the idea of in anyway of siding with him. But it's a necessity. It won't be for long. Only until they're defeated."

"You don' t know what he'll do after that. If we give him any semblance of power, he'll take it. He won't let it go. I know that. That's how he thinks. We can't give him any leeway. He's already leading us all astray,and everyone believes him. I can't understand it."

Simba fought to control his words, to keep his temper reigned in. He couldn't have another outburst, it made him look ridiculous like the cub he suspected they already saw him as. In some way she was right, he thought. He did have the closest relationship with the hyenas, he knew them in and out, but Simba couldn't abdicate power to Scar, he couldn't allow him to have sway over the pride not if he meant he saw himself as anything more than the lowly distrustful, manipulative lion he was at the core.

And Simba would never see him as anything more; there was nothing that could convince him. But his mother before him pleading, it was clear she didn't think he was up to the task, and maybe he wasn't, tested his impression of himself. He had lived a life of ease, free of strife, eating grubs. He was something other than a lion anymore, and though he hated the idea, he knew they needed someone who could lead, who had influence, and if it wasn't for the pleasing of his mother he would have laughed at the idea, would have banished Scar from the Pridelands if he didn't think with s sickening feeling that everyone wouldn't agree. He didn't know what would happen if he refused his mother's request. If the task were left solely to him and if he were to fail how could he ever forgive himself, how could she look at him with anything but disdain because he had left her, he had failed her once already.

He didn't know how to be a king; he didn't know the first thing. But perhaps Sarabi did, perhaps she should lead, and that's what she was doing he realized. She was making a decision. "It should be you," he said.

She gave him a curious expression.

"You're still the queen."

"I know, Simba," she said. "But you'll be the king one day and I can't always be here for you. But I'll do what I can."

"And you think this right?" he said. Relief filling him, knowing that there was someone else on his side, that he wasn't completely alone.

"It's not right, but for now, it's what we have to do. I know him. I can tell his moods, his thoughts, and if I see or sense that he's thinking about turning against us, I'll end him," she said.

Simba looked at his mother and realized in that moment all the things he didn't know about her, just like Nala, he had been thrust back into a life that was already charging ahead like an angry rhinoceros. Life had gone on without him. He didn't know them at all and yet his mother stood before him, willing to fight, to put herself in harm's way to protect him, to hold up the ideal they had shared as a family.

"I won't let him harm us again," she said. "I won't let him take anyone else away from our family. I know I lost faith in your survival. I should have gone and looked for you."

"I should have come back," Simba said.

"We both have our regrets," Sabari said. "But we can't lay idle in them. I won't settle for the loss of anymore of my loved ones. I won't stand for it. I will do everything in my power to protect you, Simba. We'll bring Nala back."

Sarafina had been her friend, Simba thought. They had all grown up together. It would be like losing Nala. He marveled at his mother's ability to keep a clear head. How she had managed all alone for so many years and how she now stood before him, strong, willful, and with a plan.

And in a way her strength became his own, flowed through his tired muscles, his aching head, lifted the darkness that had been settling somewhere deep inside of him and defining his thoughts. "We can," he said. And he looked at his mother and knew that he loved her, needed her.

"They need someone to believe in," Sarabi said. "It needs to be you," she said. "I can still see my cub ready for an adventure barely able to sit through bath time."

Simba laughed at the thought. He remembered squirming to get away from his mother so that he Nala could go exploring.

"You'll stand with me, won't you Simba?" Sarabi said.

"As long as you'll stand with me."

Sarabi nodded and together they returned to the assembly gathered on Priderock.


	17. Chapter 17

"Training will commence immediately," Scar said and looked over the lionesses that were gathered in front of him. They were tired, weak, thin, still recovering from the famine and drought. He looked for Nala. She could train them. "Where's Nala?" he said, not seeing her face in the crowd. "Ah, Simba," he said, when he came to stand next to him. "Nice of you to join us."

Simba didn't reply. His appearance was different in a way that Scar couldn't pinpoint. He stood taller perhaps, not a defeated slouch to his shoulders.

"Scar has a plan," Simba said addressing the crowd.

Scar tilted his head to the side. "Then I take it you are on board?"

"I need to hear it," Simba said. "But for now, I'm willing to listen."

"Well, well," Scar said and looked out once more over the crowed, a shot of something white hot and molten moved down his spine making his fur stand on end. He had their complete attention, how good it felt to be back in power, and for once not with an empty stomach clouding his thoughts. "Well, in the few agonizing moments of your absence," he said, "I've been thinking of a plan. A strategic approach to the defeat of those slobbering mongrels, something that will put them in their place."

"Oh please, Scar, we're holding our breaths. Get on with it," Sarabi said.

A flash of anger, but he let it go. "We need to train. We need to prepare. Hyenas are a drooling bunch of fools, but what they lack in intelligence, they make up in numbers, and they have the power to decimate us."

"I could have told you that," Sarabi said and there were murmurs of agreement. "Tell us why we need you Scar. Tell us why you're indispensable."

Scar looked at Sarabi and then to Simba, who stood next to his mother, his features hard, closed, his eyes fixed on Scar's. The answers evaded him, the tide was turning, he was losing the short meters of ground he had stolen out from under Simba. The wrong word and they would lose all faith in him. What would his brother do? He hated the thought instantly. He wasn't his brother. He was better. "They want me," he said. "And in my ploy I will appear to give myself up to them. It will provide you with enough time to attack. We will lure them out, pick them off one by one."

"Why would you do that?" Simba spoke for the first time. "Why would you give yourself up?"

Scar caught and held his eye. "Atonement," he said.

Simba didn't say anything, his features didn't change, still hard and drawn. Scar thought he saw something pass between Sarabi and Simba, but it wasn't much, a slight turn of her head in her son's direction.

"If we're going to do this, we're going to work together," Simba said.

Scar didn't like the authority in Simba's voice, didn't like the thought that Simba would stand equal in power with him. But the idea that his nephew would even agree to anything in the first place surprised him, made him question what tactic he might be playing at. If, however, it meant he had less opposition, then why not? If he could show Simba to be incompetent in his ruling, it might be worth it.

"Of course," he said. "I wouldn't dare decree order without the consent of the king." He dipped his head in mock reverence. "I wanted Nala to train them," he said and looked over the lionesses. He saw Simba's face darken, the light catch his eyes as he dipped his head towards the ground.

"She can't," he said.

"And why's that," Scar asked. "Where is she?"

"You care now do you?"

All of a sudden there was worry he couldn't explain, it seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once, creeping through his conscious, blinding him for a moment of all rational thought. He was worried for her, it dawned upon him. The idea bothered him; He couldn't allow such sentiment.

Simba was surprised my his Uncle's reaction, as if a great change had overcome his countenance. It had to be an act. Scar didn't love anyone but himself. The idea that Scar had offered to give himself to the hyenas had actually been the same one that Simba had been fantasizing about. It was the easiest solution. The hyenas had failed to kill Scar, and now that's probably what they wanted. Killing Sarafina had been a lure set for his Uncle, but if Scar was upset by her death, Simba couldn't tell. He would love to hand his uncle over, be rid of him and the hyenas in the same instance.

But Scar did have a point, they had tasted power, had survived and delighted in the Pridelands, bled it dry, and now when it was returning to its former growth, they would be anxious to have it back, to take from the lion's their rightful land. Who were they to have it, Simba thought, thrashing his tails against the stones.

The Pridelands belonged to the lions. And yet, he doubted that conviction. It tore at his attempt to hate them. Made him wonder what was so special about his species that they should dominate the richest, most fertile land. Because they were strong, because they had taken it? Because all of the kings beforehand watched over it from the night sky, granted it to their people, rewarded the good with sustenance and life, and the evil with putrefaction and disease, condemned his uncle's rule, and as it seemed, now, blessed his? Though the land wasn't healing as fast as he hoped, prey was still scarce, everyone was still hungry, and danger lurked from an unseen enemy. What did they think of him? A lost cub, unknowledgeable, and doubting their wisdom? It was a tenuous connection he held with them, and the last time he had tried to speak to his father, the stars hadn't answered, wouldn't tell him what to do with his uncle. Was it a test? Simba closed his eyes and wavered on his feet. Scar's final words eluding him.

As custom, Sarafina's funeral would be held when the Great Lions took to the sky, when the pitch of dark would blot out her wounds. He would wait until that time, a bone heavy tiredness leading him to the cave, where dusk reached its bloody fingers through the lichen and dirt, and the sun burnt itself away.

Nala wouldn't look at him, wouldn't acknowledge him. He dozed next to her and felt alone and couldn't breach the barrier between wakefulness and the abyss of darkness. Just out of the reach of his claws, but it evaded him, ran with frantic hoof beats away from his grasp and left him with the warmth of his mate next to his side. He had lost her, he thought. She was gone. And he got up and moved to stand on the jutting precipice to look out over the land, but stopped when he heard shifting stones as if someone had had the same idea, but when he looked around he didn't see anyone. Everyone's scent was mingled together and it was impossible to tell. The stars were clouded and no matter how long Simba sat there trying to discern their shape they wouldn't appear. "Father," he whispered, the word like burnt ash on his tongue. And when he felt nothing, and heard nothing, he went back into the cave and stayed, waiting silently for when his mother would come to find him and they would lay Sarafina to rest.


	18. Chapter 18

"I remember the words," Sarabi said, and then she turned to Scar. He caught her eye and even though she didn't say anything he read her meaning. 'So do you.' They made a ring around Sarafina's body. Night had fallen on the Pridelands, and yet the clouds still covered the sky, restless and roiling. Occasionally, the moon would flash between their great churning paths, showing itself, a great beacon above them. And then once again being swallowed by the fog, as if their actions stood somewhere in a plane in between light and darkness.

Sarabi stepped forward and stopped by Saranina's body. "Let us look to the stars," she said. "Let us hold them in reverence, for they are the great lions and lionesses who have gone before us. Even when we cannot see them, they can see us. They know us. They behold us. They judge us kindly when we are good; they know our actions when we are evil. They show themselves when they are proud. They hide when we are wicked. As they do not look at us now, it is a sign. A sign that something terrible has happened. Sarafina does not rest in peace."

There was a murmuring all around Sarabi, fear intermingled in the incomprehensible sound. Wind stirred the air between Scar's shoulder blades, and he felt a heaviness settle over him. His leg ached, the cuts and bruises giving their own alarm the longer he stood looking over her body. In the darkness he couldn't see her wounds. It was as if she was already becoming a part of it, fading away. Sarabi's words filtered to the background as he continued to contemplate Sarafina.

She had told him about the maned flower. The one Mufasa had found near the outskirts of the Pridelands. On the edge of the Outlands, a place they were forbidden to tread. Sarafina said it was like nothing she had ever seen, and she doubted she would see it again: gold and orange, streaks of red, like a sunset, and not just a sunset, but the mane of a lion.

Mufasa plucked it in between his jaws and swore his life to Sarabi. And then she said the wind had caught it, pulled it from Mufasa's jaw and swept it into the darkness of the outlands, and they had stood somber, because Sarafina had seen in that action an omen of darkness; the red maned lion would give way, would falter, not now but sometime. Her words had settled over them, and Sarabi had made Sarafina swear that she would never speak of it again. To say it aloud would ensure its truth. And yet she had told Scar that day, and lied later, told Sarabi she hadn't.

Scar drifted closer to Sarafina's body. Sarabi's words pelted him like cold water, doused the fire and lolled him away, because he hadn't slept with her body laying by the watering hole. He stopped directly in front of her, looking for the cub who had been by his side, for the lioness that had caught and pulled him forth from his machinations, distracted him in the most irritating of way, and yet a part of him had appreciated her. Loved her? The thought was foreign to him. And yet there had been a time, even when the thought had been laced in pragmatism, when he desired to see his own life in something else, something that Simba could never have. And yet he had devoted no time to Nala when she had been born.

Perhaps, because Sarafina had denied him, cast him away, he could never know for sure if Nala was really his, and yet a part of him clung to the belief, wanted it to be true more than he could ever admit. He wanted Nala to be his. And now she wasn't here. Simba stood in the back, peering over the sleek coats of the lionesses that glowed an evanescent green under the moon. Nala still lay catatonic in the cave.

"As Sarafina departs from us, she leaves her memories with us, and she will live on in what we hold of her. We have a duty to those who have gone before us. To uphold them, to protect them, to pass them on to all who come after, so they will know and not be forgotten to the passing of the sun, and the rotation of the moon. To be forgotten will extinguish them, fade them. Their light in the night sky will go out. That is why we keep their names with us, hold them, pass them on, never forget them. I implore us all to take Sarafina's name with our own, to hold our sister within our hearts, think of her and rage for her loss."

Sarabi stopped speaking, her voice still lingering over the procession. In the silences it lodged itself, and her words lingered within Scar. "Sarafina," he thought. "Finey," the name came to him. "Had he ever called her that?" Sarabi used to call her that. Almost inseparable at one time. Bi and Finey. How stupid it was to recall that now. They had been dumb, indolent, rolling, and fighting, and pouncing.

Mufasa was always trying to drag Scar along. He would have rather been staring at the bao cups and stones trying to think of a way to win, trying to figure out for the life of him how Sarafina had outsmarted him.

One day, he had dragged her away from Sarabi and Mufasa, and demanded her to tell him, because he couldn't stand the thought of losing to someone like her: Impulsive, reckless, whiny, dumb, like all the other cubs he had known.

"I don't know," she said. "I feel it, and I know what to do. Not much thinking to really at all, now is there," she said and laughed. She rolled one of the bowls between her paws, upsetting it. "Like chance. I'll show you. "

" Another one of Rafiki's games?" he hissed and watched her movement. She took two more bowls and flipped them upside down. "Give me one of your stones," she said.

"Use one of your own," he shot back, but after a moment complied, watching the bowls carefully.

"Now I'm going to put it under the middle one, and you close your eyes."

"No," he said. "It's a trick."

"Is not," she shot back. "Now close your eyes. I'm going to move them around, and then you're going to tell me where the stone is."

"It's dumb. There's no way. It's blind luck."

"I can do it," she said. "Every time, I get it right.

"Oh, Kings!" he said. "I know you're lying. There's no way."

"Well, you go first and then you can test me." With a dramatic sigh, he nodded his head, and put one paw over his eyes. "Don't look," she said. He nodded, once again.

"Hurry up before I become one of those dead old lions in the sky." He heard the sound of the bowls scrapping against stone, and he tried to visualize how Sarafina would move them. "Are you done, yet," he asked.

"Almost."

He heard one long last scrape. Sarafina favored her right paw. She would start by moving the right farthest bowl, switching it most likely with the one in the middle. He had heard five movements all together. That would account for two, meaning the stone would be in the farthest right. After that she had shifted it again. Next moving it to the left, and then one long final shift. She had taken the right most bowl and moved to the left side, meaning the stone was in the middle. He licked his lips, knowing for sure that he was correct.

"Okay," she said. "Where is it?"

"Easy," he said. "It's in the middle."

"Now, Taka, are you sure about that? Are you sure you don't want to change your answer. This is final," she said and laughed.

"Just flip it over already," he said.

"No need for that," she said. You're so impatient some times. You know the other day I was walking by the watering hole…"

"Sarafina," he said lowly, "flip it over, or -"

"Or what," she said. "You know in a fight I would take you. I can keep talking and talking, because I know how much it annoys you. But-"

"Fine," he sat down, and starred her directly in the eyes. "Please," he said.

"Wow! Wow, for that I don't think I can refuse. Well , I hate to disappoint you." Her expression was one of great glee, and he rolled his eyes. "The middle, huh?" she said and flipped it over. Nothing was there. He dropped down into a crouch narrowing his eyes and placed his nose next to the empty spot where the bowl had been before. "Impossible. I know it was there."

"I guess you didn't really," she said. "It's this one." She pointed to the right most and flipped it over. Underneath, was the black and white zebra stripe stone had had collected the other day. "Just luck," he growled. Nothing to it."

"Fine, try me now, if that's what you really believe."

"With pleasure."

She hopped over the bowls and sat down where he had been. He took her spot, already planning how he would trick her. Easy, he thought. No, stone, no chance she can win.

"All right," he said. "Give me one of your stones."

She pushed a pure black one towards him, and he felt the smoothness under his paw. "Close your eyes," he said and rolled his paw in irritation, the stone smooth against the pad of his foot. "I'm putting it under the left one."

He watched and made sure she covered her eyes, and when he knew for sure he slipped the stone back out from under the cup and put it back under the pad of his foot. He moved the bowls at random, rotating them over and over again, until he grew bored, and told her to open her eyes.

"Okay, Oh, Great diviner of the Stars, where is it?"

She knelt down, seeming to analyze each bowl, her nose almost touching them. Her eyes closed, a small hum rising from the back of her throat.

What theatrics, he thought.

And then she sat down, her tail thrashing from side to side. "It's not under any of them. You're cheating."

"No, I'm not." His heart rate quickened.

"Uh, yeah you are."

"You are cheating. Lift up her paw."

He lifted up his left paw.

She rolled her eyes. "Lift up the other one."

"Make me," he said.

With no warning she pounced across the close distance and pinned him to the ground, knocking him off balance. She pushed her paw against his shoulder and the back of his head hit the hard stone. With a yowl he drew his claws, the pain blinding him, but he caught himself, his claws inches from her nose. She looked at him with wide-eyes, not afraid though, and she stepped off, allowing him to sit back up.

"See" she said and pointed to the stone. "I knew you were a liar."

"That hurt Fin," he said and rubbed a paw against the back of his head.

"You deserved it. You never play by the rules."

"I do in Bao. It's not some stupid game of luck, not like all the dumb games you play with Sarabi and Mufasa; ruler of Priderock is little more than strength contest. This is just luck, there's nothing to either of them. But Bao is strategy."

"And I still beat you at it. What does that mean? I must be the smartest of us all."

He regarded her with a pained expression. "I wouldn't say that." He looked at the ground.

"Taka, don't let them get you down. It's just games. No one thinks any less of you if you don't win."

"I think less of me," he said and hated the words as soon as he said them. Hated that he had made himself vulnerable.

"Well, I don't," she said, and then looking embarrassed, an expression he had never seen on her face before, she bounded out of the cave. "Come on, let's go find them."

"Wait," he said. He felt a warmth in his chest, like when he would lay in the sun . "How did you know?" he said. "How did you know the stone wasn't there?" She didn't answer, and he sprung out of the cave, chasing after her.

It was only years later when he found out the truth. "You've always been hung up on that," she said, and went into her cave and came back with a few black stones in her mouth and dropped them at her feet. "Smell them," she said.

He knelt down. There was a peculiar pungent order that they gave off. "Fire rock," he said.

"I couldn't believe I tricked you. You, Scar, with all the answers." Part of him didn't like his name on her tongue. He wished she would call him Taka. He shook the thought away.

"Tricky, tricky, Sarafina," he said. "I knew such an act wasn't above you."

"What do you know of me, anymore," she said and turned away.

"Is she mine?" he asked. He was met with silence, and he growled the question again. The sun shifting and wavering behind her as she moved from the stone ledge, down to the savanna. She didn't look back at him.

"How would I know the answer to something you don't?" She said quietly, an edge of something dark in her voice.

And he faltered, let her leave, the sun's radiation falling against his paw. The sky burning bright, orange and red in a great conflagration that lit the whole savanna, turning the pale grass to gold, burning the baobab trees a deep red, their leaves brown and fiery in the light. It all eluded him. Burned in him the desire to know and hold the one thing that could bring them together, bridge years of neglect, of falling out, of seeing differently. He turned his back, the sunlight fleeing from his paws as the kingdom succumbed to darkness.

They moved Sarafina's body to a cool cave near the backside of Pride Rock, rivulets of water ran underneath Scar's paw as they approached. There was a coldness there that sank deep beneath his pelt, a dampness that latched around his heart, and held him in the fog.

"We lay her to rest here, where our ancestors have found their final home for all of the generations predating ours. Where she will arise and join the great kings and queens and lions of the sky." Sarabi knelt her head at the entrance, and the lionesses and Simba, who had entered the cave and laid her body within came back out and followed Sarabi's lead. Each bowed their head in turn. Scar watched from the back, his green eyes glinting, and offered the smallest dip of his own head just before Sarabi broke the spell. In a ghostly fashion, seeming like wandering apparitions under the green glow of the moon, the lionesses dispersed and moved back to their own caves with thoughts of mortality and immortality sure to haunt them throughout the night.

Scar ducked into the shadows. Sarabi and Simba lingered the longest. Sarabi stood close to the entrance, and Simba leaned against her, or maybe she was leaning against him. It was hard to tell. They said nothing as far as Scar could tell, their eyes locked on the darkness of the cave. Sarabi nodded her head, and they walked away together

Scar stood where he was, something rooting his own paws to the earth. With a shudder he approached the cave and from his jaws he dropped the black fire stone, and dug a little hole with the tip of his claw and buried it. He ducked his head. Maybe he would tell her that in some way she had been right. That she was braver, stronger, clever, maybe he had misjudged her, been cruel, dismissed her, burdened her, hurt her, maybe maybe maybe, but silence swallowed his words. He turned around and headed back for his lonely ledge near the top of Pride Rock.


	19. Chapter 19

That night, caught in a net of sleeplessness, Scar rolled and kicked and tried to evade the sense of doom that had settled within him and refused to leave. He was trapped in something he hadn't intended. Something or someone had woven its way into his thoughts, at first so innocuous, little more than a gentle caress that he hadn't noticed; given it the chance to slip in among his defenses where it had struck an accord and was wreaking havoc to his well thought out plans, leaving him with ambivalences and doubt.

He felt like he had been thrown off of Priderock all over again, discombobulated and fighting to contain some resemblance of his former self. You aren't that lion anymore, he thought, and batted at the idea as if it were a tangible enemy.

Behind his eyelids, he sought the light of the stars and got lost in the darkness. A snarling growl and sharp pinpricks of pain bit into his shoulder, and moved through his whole body. No matter how hard he fought, the darkness spread. First skittering across his paws, his legs, spreading across his chest, sidling down his back, and as it moved it devoured him.

His claws scrambled against the dirt. Sarafina appeared before him, and he reached out a paw hoping to snag her before she faded away and joined the dead who had returned to haunt him.

But his paw slid through her, and she faded as if his touch had been the last blow, leaving him beside himself. And then, emerging from behind him, there was a high voice, "Dad," it said and Scar turned. Nala stood there, her eyes wide, her features strange, mad. The mad queen, he thought, standing somewhere on the brink. They had called him the mad king Scar. She snapped at him with fangs of blood, and raked her claws through the darkness and caught nothing because there was nothing where he had been before.

"Nala," he said and wished he could pull her out of the darkness.

"She's still alive." A voice rose out of the dark and it spoke in gold warmth and light, and it wasn't his own, but it shook through his bones and threatened to tear him apart.

It boomed in the baritone of his brother, but there were other voices encroached inside, as if all the dead at his feet had awoken and come for their reckoning.

With a ragged moan he awoke, breathing heavily, still caught in darkness. His wits emerged slowly, leaving him scared and brittle in their absence. No better than a cub.

Sarafina had undone everything, and how? He didn't know. Her death had awoken some latent part of him that longed for connection. She had been the only one to have any understanding of who he was. She hadn't been a capricious whim, not then, and he regretted telling Nala that, driving the wedge between them ever wider. And never before had he regretted a lie in such a way. He longed to tell her the truth, but if it would reach her he didn't know.

He tried to think of the fighting tactics he would have to impart to the lionesses tomorrow, but Nala kept finding her way back into his thoughts. He dug a paw through the dirt.

XXX

Scar stood before the lioness at the base of Pride Rock. The savanna was quiet in the morning, the sun barely above the horizon. Simba had yet to emerge from his cave, and Scar saw his opportunity to address the lionesses without any interference from his nephew.

"You have to be fast," Scar said. "Once one hyena has you, they all do, and they're ruthless. They'll eat a lion where he stands." Scar stood defiant, well aware that his scraggly, scabbed appearance was testament to his words. His fur had started to grow over the lesser wounds, but his leg still showed signs of trauma, and it bothered him more than he would admit it. And the wounds, to his chagrin, that refused to heal were the ones Simba had given him; three lancing slashes next to his snout. Almost as if Mufasa had come in that moment for his reckoning and left Scar with a reminder. The memory was strange, clouded, and yet he could remember how Simba's form had shifted to his fathers.

"Not a lioness though," Sarabi challenged. The rest of the pride laughed and nodded in agreement. "They wouldn't dare."

"We wouldn't give them the chance."

A flurry of voices rose around him.

"Fools!" He shouted. "Shenzi will have your throat out."

"Yes, Scar we know. Be fast. Who does the hunting around here? Think we might have more knowhow then a lay-about like yourself."

"These aren't some lame gazelle. They might be just as stupid. But if there's one thing that hyenas excel at its organized murder."

The pride fell silent at the word. They looked at him with cold eyes.

"Fitting you found each other then," Sarabi said finally.

"Speed," scar said ignoring the provocation. "You have to work together."

Simba wandered down the incline his claws throwing up pebbles. He looked dazed. His eyes focused somewhere far beyond the pride.

Simba," Sarabi said, "how's Nala?"

He shook his head.

Scar craned his neck around.

"Resting," Simba said when he saw the rest of the pride watching him. The word lacked strength. Defeat, Scar thought. His nephew was starting to crack.

"Shenzi will be expecting us," Scar said. "What they did, they did as a lure. They plan to use our rage against us. They'll expect us to make mistakes. But we won't give them the opportunity."

"I'll kill her," Simba said and stepped forward. "Shenzi, I'll kill her."

The lionesses looked at him. Sarabi took a step towards her son.

He said the word coldly.

"It won't be that easy," Scar said. "Even groups need leaders. She won't be in the front line."

"I'll get to her," he said and growled.

"Simba, we all want justice," Sarabi said and stepped closer to him. "But you can't charge in there without some plan. Scar is right on that, though I'm loath to admit it. An attack like that is little more than suicide. Please, Simba, listen to me."

"No, for once, I will make my own decision."

"Simba-"

"Listen to me. Everyone listen to me." Simba stepped in front of Scar.

The fur on his back rose. How dare this sniveling cub interrupt my training, Scar thought.

"If I don't end this now, then we will never be free of their cruelty. They will dog us, pick us off one by one until we're wiped out. The only tactic is to fight. Get to Shenzi and let me deal with her."

The savanna burned red before Simba's eyes, all of his anger channeled into his words. The brutality of the act niggled at his mind. Telling him to think of his actions, of the bloodshed, and destruction; to instead consider harmony, consider peace.

But Nala, he had to think of Nala now, and Sarafina, and the others that could have the same fate if he didn't act. It was us or them. And what had the hyenas ever done to align themselves with the lions. They had only created famine and death. They would leave or they would die. There was no other option in his mind.

"We will show no mercy to the lot of murders who came onto our land and took from us two of our pride. And you, " he said turning on his uncle. "If you have any hope of living, you will tell us everything you know about them. Where they eat. Where they sleep. What Shenzi thinks."

How dare he bark orders. Scar narrowed his eyes, and stared down his nephew throughout his speech. He wouldn't feel fear, not from this whelp ruthlessly blinded by his emotions. Oh, but how easy to encourage. How easy to send Simba to his death with his blind conviction that made him so stupidly brave.

"Oh Simba, I rely fully upon your commands and magnanimity." He ducked his head. The cracks in Simba's sanity were thick now. A little more prodding and everything would shatter. "Now," Scar said, "if I can make a suggestion, I think that focusing on training is pertinent. If you will be leading the charge, I suggest you join us as well."

Sarabi approached her son, and touched her nose to his shoulder.

"Unless you feel you are more qualified, of course," Scar said. "You certainly have the conviction, but do you have the skills? What did a pig and a rat pass on to you in the ways of fighting, I do wonder. "

Simba looked to the ground.

"Well no matter. What I do know of the hyenas, I had already begun to tell the pride."

"And so far it's been little more than we already know," a lioness said.

"Non-the-less, you are not trained for battle, so for the rest of the afternoon, I suggest we spar. We will pair off into threes, two against one. You must think like hyenas. They don't always go for a quick kill, they snap at paws, they snap at ears, they'll corner you. Think of this when you are on the offensive, and the lionesses on the defensive, you need to think of a method to combat this."

Sarabi stepped forward. "Stay low. Don't give them the chance to bite your legs. You will be able to see their approach. "

"That's not attacking," a tawny colored lioness sounded from the back.

"Exactly. We will be entering their territory. We will need to be defensive."

"We can fight like them," Simba said and stepped closer to his mother. "We can lure them here."

"Into the Pridelands?" Someone said.

"Into our home?"

"We'd have the advantage. We know the land."

"You forget they know it, as well," Scar said. "Maybe even better. Somehow, under our noses, they were able to spirit-away Sarafina and kill her, while we remained unawares. The terrain is what matters."

"The fact remains that most of the lionesses don't know the outlands. We would have a better advantage if we fought on our own lands. We will give them no warning. We will not explain ourselves. They made no such effort with Sarafina, and neither will we," Simba hissed. "When we hand you over, that's when I'll attack. That's when you'll draw her out and then I'll kill her."

"Before or after she has my throat in her jaw?"

"I haven't decided yet," Simba said. His eyes were cold.

"You forget, Simba. I know the outlands. I will teach them to you. I know every spot Shenzi could hide, and we can use it to our advantage. We can fight in a wide open field, or we can trap them in their caves full of bones. Shenzi won't have a place to run. And you will have the element of surprise. Sometimes, that's all it takes." Scar stepped closer to Simba, trying to read his expression.

"Keep training," Simba said, and turned a dismissive shoulder.

Scar narrowed his eyes and looked to the lionesses. He hated to allow Simba the last word, but what he could take away from his speech was that Simba's emotions would be his downfall. That was good enough for now.

"Now that we have that out of the way, it's time for a little practice I think,' Scar said. "Pair off." He turned away from the lionesses.

"Where are you going?" Simba said, as Scar began to walk away.

"For a stroll. I need to clear my head. Don't worry yourself, Simba. I just need to stretch this leg." He turned around to see Simba following him with his eyes, but the golden king stayed where he was as the lionesses paired off around him, his mane blowing lightly in the wind.


	20. Chapter 20

"Rafiki!" Scar yelled. He stalked around the base of the tree. Where was that blasted mandrill? "Rafiki!" He braced himself against the tree, stretching his back and digging his nails into the bark in an attempt to peer through the thick foliage. Something struck him in the face and he jumped back. Rafiki swung down from the lowest branch, brandishing his ever present stick.

"Well, well," he said, "I saw your approach yesterday in the remnants of a few mashed leaves and cacao seed." He swung back up and onto the branch, balancing himself precariously and gave a wide grin. "Even though I saw, I hadn't decided on my greeting. But this one came to me just now. What do you think?"

"Insufferable," Scar said and rubbed a paw against his head.

"How is the leg of yours?"

"I didn't come to you seeking medical advice."

"Interesting," Rafiki said. "What can I do for you? If you're looking for a snack, I will let you know now that it will not be me."

"You're a meatless morsel I can do without. Monkey never did agree with me. No, I have a favor," he said with a wave of his paw. "And it's not for my own benefit, so don't speak just yet."

Rafiki cocked his head. "This is new," he murmured. "The leaves didn't give me as much insight as I would wish. Well tell me this favor."

"I need bowls."

"What a strange request. You wish a game then? The old one I taught you four, eh? Why, I wonder? A connection, perhaps?"

Scar didn't respond.

"Well, scarred one, that is a request I can help with."

Rafiki pulled himself back into the cavernous extent of branches that formed the protective canopy of his home, and Scar was left alone with memories he thought vanished. And now they settled over him like the heavy heat of the morning, and under the pressure, thoughts of Sarafina materialized ; first, vague outlines that then gave way to tactile memories, so that she became real and false in the same moment, a mirage in the wavering morning light of the Pridelands; her ghost now always by his side.

He saw her in the darkness of the cave. She wouldn't let him sleep. It was if she was in his head, had found a way in and refused to leave. If he could talk to Nala, if he could pull her back from the brink, maybe the thoughts of Sarafina would relent; give him back his mind, because he couldn't fight the hyenas with her voice so much louder than his own thoughts.

Rafiki clambered down, one hand laden with a stack of tiny bowls he had carved many years ago and he carried two more in his mouth. He dropped to the ground in front of Scar and unhooked his staff from the lowest branch. "You remember how to play?"

"Of course."

"I remember, though, you weren't the best."

Scar remained silent. It had been Sarafina. He had calculated every move, thought through the movements of the stones, but Sarafina had been willing to take risks, and if it was some sort of Intuitive knowledge he lacked, or what, he couldn't understand because more than often her risks paid off in the end. What had she done with the hyenas? How had she gotten involved?

Rafiki wrapped the small cups in leaves and tied them all together into a small package that Scar could easily grasp between his teeth.

"The stones," he said.

"Those you collect for yourself. Remember what I taught you four all those years ago."

"Superstition," Scar said. "The whole of it. The stones, the stars." And he hoped Rafiki would refute him. The mandrill had a connection to the stars, to the otherworld that he couldn't fathom. It was beyond logic.

"It's because he has a better view. He knows them all because he's meant to look up. We're meant to look down. He's not tethered to the ground like we are," Sarafina told Scar a long time ago. "But it doesn't mean they're not there." Scar remembered Mufasa nodding at that, like it was some bit of sage wisdom.

And even as Scar sneered at her faith, a part of him desired to understand. And he only grasped at them when all had failed him. When he thought he would die. And he couldn't recreate the feeling of oblivion at his feet as the fire and hyenas came to surround him, but he also couldn't deny that it hadn't been there.

He walked to the watering hole carrying the package in his mouth and keeping an eye on either side of himself. But Sarafina's murder still seemed to stand as the only warning from the hyenas. They hadn't come back. Shenzi was testing the waters, seeing how the pride would react. Testing Simba, he thought. What kind of king would this furball prove to be? Not much of one. He could see the lionesses in the distance, the practice well underway. They attacked invisible enemies in pairs of two. He dropped the bundle, and dug through the pebbles and sticks, collecting stones and dropping them into the exposed depression of the bowl nearest the top.

He entered the cave, not knowing why a shiver slithered down his spine. Nala lay near the back; her head on her fore-paws, her eyes cast against the adjacent wall. The stones felt heavy in the leaves, and he found his paws refused to move forward. How stupid, he thought. I'm in control here. There's no need to be afraid. He pushed himself forward and approached her.

"Nala," he said, biting the word harder than he wished. And then again, a bit softer, "Nala, I brought something for you. We talked about it earlier, Bao." he said. "A game of..., well a game of strategy."

When she didn't look up, he dropped the bound leaves in front of her. "Do you remember? You came to see me when I was still too injured to hunt on my own. You came to see me, and I told you there was a game that Sarafina and I used to play." He hesitated, seeing if the mention of her mother's name would cause any sort of reaction. Her gaze remained locked in the same place, his legs as it were, but if he were to move she would still be staring at the wall.

"You know, you're quite easy to talk to Nala," he said, and a pained laugh escaped his throat. "You should have seen that idiot Zazu. Constant yammering, would talk when you desired silence. Only offered the most banal of suggestions when you wanted his advice. Awful singer, not only his voice, but his song choice, you wouldn't believe what I had to endure with him as a major domo. Where is that flea-ridden bird, anyway?" His own voice echoed around his ears, and he swished his tail back and forth, not yet frustrated, thinking, thinking. What could he say to bring her forth, what would break this stupor? Sarafina, he thought. And he turned back to the game. "I want to teach you this game, because of your mother," he said and hesitated. "Sarafina," the word lodged in his mouth. He hoped it would awaken her, but it only caused something within him to constrict.

He held the bundle with one paw, and with his mouth he drew the string up and away. He set up the bowls from memory, placing the bowls in front of Nala and then in front of himself. They were each made from wood. He could see where Rafiki had scraped away the inside. Her line of sight remained the same. He dropped down to her level, his snout against the cold stone, and held her gaze, but her lids were lowered over her eyes, and he couldn't tell if she saw him or not.

"It's a game of strategy," he said, thinking he'd already said that. You have twenty two stones, and I have twenty two stones. I had to pick these ones out for you. Each lion is supposed to find his own, some superstitious mumble jumble that Rafiki believes in, but I took the task upon myself to find some for you. This always was a game meant for mandrills and birds. Tell me how a lion's supposed to grip and move these things with any dexterity, but alas Sarafina said it was easy. Never really did believe her," he gripped one of the stones between two claws, and dropped it into the next cup. "Takes some practice, but it's doable." Rambling like a cub struck in the head by an antelope, he remonstrated to himself.

"Well, you can sow or you can capture. My goal is to claim all of your stones before you claim mine. That's the basic premise."

He rolled one of the stones over his paw, and tilted his head to the side, trying to judge if she had heard anything that he had just said. Anything. A twitch of a whisker; a sign of annoyance; a flicker of an eyelid. He moved the stones into the bowls in front of her.

"I think it's easier if I just show you." He waited a breath for a response, not expecting one. In the cup in the middle he placed nine of his own stones, and picked up three stones in his paw, dropping one in each bowl leading up to the middle one where he dropped his last stone.

"Since I dropped my last stone in this bowl, I can take whatever is in the bowl on your side opposite this one." He reached over and scooped three of her stones out.

"Now, if I were you, I would go on the defensive. If you move these stones," he pointed to the cup at the far right, "you'll make it much harder for me to steal anything on my next turn." He waited for a reply.

"Qui tacet consentire videtur," he said. "He is who is silent is taken to agree," he said, and moved the stones in front of her. "You know why I wanted to play you?" He waited, picking up more of his own stones. "I wanted to play you because your mother was the only one who could ever beat me at this game. And I've never been beaten," he said. "Oh, sure, it might look like it now; you would say that I would think. You would be happy if it were true, but it's not. I've had a plan all along."

He waited, sure that it would get a rise out of her. "I might even tell it to you. How does that sound? Certainly different than before, eh?" he said. "Now you played such a great move last time, that you've prevented me from capturing any of your stones. Really very astute," he said and laughed, and then sighed. "I'll move here now. This is what we call a long play, one that is set into motion long before the payout is received. It takes patience, and waiting, and it can be frustrating, but you must hold onto the notion that in the end it will all be worth it. Now, the real challenge lays on your part. You have to see through me. You have to think like me. What am I planning? I moved with no intention of taking any of your stones. It's slightly suspect, and in a less skilled player you might suspect a rookie mistake, but when facing an experienced opponent you must always assume that there is a plan. I find it best to start the execution within the first five moves. Choose one tactic and stick with it. Changing mid-play will decimate your chances of succeeding. If I were you," he said, and reached his paw across to his stones, "I would..." he moved the stones , each seed dropping from his claws with a sound much too loud in the cave. He studied the board. He studied the wall behind her, and in the silence, the cave faded away, and in the disconnect it was easy to think it was Sarafina in front of him. It was easy much too easy, and a coldness filled his chest.

"I'm not Sarafina," a voice said. And the cave reemerged from the darkness and dropped him suddenly back into the middle. Nala's eyes were lifted and locked on his own. "That's not my name," she said, quietly.

"Nala," he whispered and leaned closer.

"Scar," she said, and he saw her paw, saw her intention, knew that if he leaned a little to the right he could easily avoid it, but he didn't, he sat still, closed his eyes, and let out a little hiss of air as her paw connected with his jaw. The pain wasn't immediate, and he realized that she hadn't drawn her claws, though he felt a tooth loosen, and blood filled his mouth.

"Did you do it?" she said.

"No," he said around the blood. He wiped his paw across his mouth, and it came back red. Good. For all the blood on Sarafina's body, he deserved some as well. Good, he thought. Good. That word lodged itself in a hysterical loop. He swallowed the blood, and thought, good, good, good. And couldn't think to say anything else.

He blinked and the illusion vanished. He looked at his paw. No blood. Nala hadn't moved, her head still rested against the ground. He shook his head trying to understand the vision. Shaken he looked to the wooden bowls. Good, still lingered on the tip of his tongue, and afraid it would come out, he gritted his teeth, and cleared his throat.

"Nala," he said, still not believing that it had all been within his own mind. He had tasted the blood, felt the tooth loosen, and heard her voice so distinct and clear.

"Nala," he snarled, and looked at the game, suddenly full of hatred. He took a paw and swiped the bowls. They bounced from the cave wall, spilling the stones across the cave floor with staccato bursts of sound. And then he stalked out, utterly defeated and seething.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to mention that the game, Bao referenced throughout this chapter is an actual game that is played in East Africa. You may have heard or played a variant of it called Mancala. If your interested there are a few videos on YouTube that describe how it is played. It is comparable to chess, and therefore I thought an appropriate game for Scar to show interest in.


	21. Chapter 21

Scar peered over the ledge of Pride Rock and watched the lionesses spar. Simba stood to the side, and he suddenly wanted nothing more than to hurt him.  Anger coursed through his blood and pushed him towards action. An anger that couldn’t be soothed with the long term, one that needed an immediate cure.  He would show that whelp how the hyenas fought, show him that this wasn't going to be some easy battle _. Standing there like he rules the world, like nothing is ever hard, like everything’s fallen in front of him no questions asked_ , Scar thought.  _The destined king. The golden progeny. Blessed by all the stars_ , and, yet, under his watch, Sarafina had been murdered, Nala had arrived at a fate even worse than death, and this cub in charge had done nothing to prevent either. _What a king._ He laughed and jumped, the sound like dry wood cracking. He descended Pride Rock, his tail lashing, and stopped in front of Simba.

"Scar," Simba said, and looked over his shoulder, his gaze seeming to lie on the lionesses, but not quite. _Somewhere else_ , Scar thought.

"Look at me," he hissed. Simba's eyes moved slowly, and the lack of urgency irritated him more. "Look at the great king, not lifting a paw," Scar said. He could tell he had his attention now. "Overseeing it all. Isn't it precious ordering others to their deaths while preserving one’s own hide on the sidelines? Oh Simba, I can see how the cushy life has made a real fine king of you." His blood seemed to jump in his veins, his heart loud and fast in his ears. Not like last time when he had been so injured he could barely move, now he stood a chance. He could kill him, tear out his throat. Simba didn't know how to fight. On level ground they were equal.

Simba blinked, but he thought he could see a flash of something cross his face.

"Fight me Simba. I know how the hyenas fight. A king should stand with his pride," he said. Simba remained motionless.

"Scar, you're pathetic," Simba said. And he made to turn away, but Scar saw it, the briefest of hesitation, a flick of his tail, it must have been a blink of a decision, a sudden eruption of flame, but he stepped back in time, avoiding Simba's paw. But that was enough. He drew his claws, and looked for an opening, sidestepping another of Simba's attack. Sarabi shouted something off to the left.

"The hyenas attack like this," Scar said with a growl and lunged for Simba's back legs, catching him off balance. Simba raised a paw, his own attack interrupted, and with a gasp of air hit the ground.  Scar sank his claws in deeper until Simba let out a roar.  Simba twisted around and snaked out a paw.  Scar moved, gasping as his back paw twisted awkwardly, but he didn't fall. Good he could fight. He could support himself. He had enough strength.

 "Tough isn't it?” he said, almost laughing. "There's more than just one though. When you really fight them, there'll be four or five, one going for each leg, one at your neck, one on your back. Learn to fight little king, or it'll be your neck next that falls to Shenzi's jaws.”

 Simba stood gingerly putting weight on his back foot.  "Scar, you are testing my patients. I’m done fighting you.”

 "I wasn't fighting you, Simba.  I was making a point. A demonstration, if you will. "

Simba stood silently, his tail lashing back and forth. "We’re done."

 "Will you know how to fight when the time comes?" Scar said. "Or will you leave them to die."

 "Enough." Sarabi stepped in between the two lions. "I've heard enough of this."

 "You trust your life to this irresponsible, inexperience-"

"That is enough Scar," Sarabi said and flashed her teeth, rounding on him. "I will not hear any more of this. Either teach us in a manner we will be able to use, or make yourself scarce. "

 "I was teaching," he said. "How do you expect your son to learn when he's brooding in the shadows? If he is to fight, then he must fight."

 "I had no problem fighting you after I returned," Simba said.

"You left me to the hyenas. Can you kill Simba? Your lionesses soak their teeth in blood for you, but can you kill?" Scar asked.

"Coming from the lion who turned his back. Who fights with subterfuge.  I think the question you should ask yourself , Scar, is if you will be ready. After what happened last time, you can't blame me if I think you’re not."

 Oh, so Simba wanted to play it that way, did he? A swipe of his own figurative paw meant to send Scar to the ground. It was interesting to see his nephew try to use words to outsmart him. It was something he hadn't considered Simba capable of. Always in his mind, Simba had been this dumb beast, something to be talked down to with derision. Easy to dismiss. But he wasn't really that way. He had been a curious cub, too curious, and that had left an opening for Scar to take advantage of. He had been easy manipulate back then. Certainty it couldn't be quite the same now. He must have learned.

“I want to see you fight Simba. I want to see how you plan to defend yourself when they all converge on you, and there's no one around to help you. I want to see how you deal with a situation of that caliber. Show me, won't you?" If he could make him upset it would be easy to make Simba look like a fool, trip him up once more, and what sort of faith would the lionesses have in him then? "You fight like a cub. Though it's understandable. Of course, you fight like a cub, you weren't given the opportunity to learn. Your childhood was cut short, wasn't it? You were denied all the love and support a cub needs to grow into a great ruler. You were trampled and thrown away, and you came back expecting to be received with open arms no questions asked."

 "You destroyed the Pridelands. "

 "I did no such thing. You blame me for drought." He laughed. "You blame me because the antelope fled."

 

"You grew too close to the hyenas. "

 "The hyenas, yes. Always back to them isn't it. Well, that Simba, you can blame on your father. Your father that broke a pact, who deprived them of fertile land and clean water. What else could you expect from them?"

 Simba didn't say anything. He cast his gaze across the savanna. A few lionesses continued to spar, but most of them had turned to listen. "Simba, Simba," he moved closer. "Do tell me how you plan to sneak in there. Do tell me what you will do with Shenzi once you have her, because, little prince, I don't think you have it in you. I think your father would be soooo disappointed." There that was it. He saw  the effects of his words; a flash in Simba's eyes, that grew from nothing, that blazed wholly now, spurring him on. "You who let his kingdom fall when didn't come back.  Who left without a second thought."

 "It was you. You made me." Simba lashed out, and Scar sidestepped, ducking low, to avoid a thrash from Simba's other paw. Simba still kept his claws withdrawn. "Now now, letting your temper get the best  you will only give the hyenas a chance to attack. "

Scar moved carefully, looking for an opening. "Like," one step back and to the left, and there, there it was, ”this!” He lunged, raking his claws inches above the dirt in between Simba's front and back legs. But just before he could attack again, he felt his back leg buckle, not break, but protest the fast movement he had attempted. Simba struck out. Scar hit the ground. He tried to scramble, his leg useless, his paws sending up plumes of dust and sand as he struggled, blinking dirt from his eyes. _Kings! That had hurt_ , nothing broken, but if that were to happen when facing down the hyenas, he would be dead. If Simba with such an easy swipe of his paw could bring him down, then he was in trouble. He needed to play it smoothly.

"Yes, that's right,” he said when he managed to get to his feet. “That’s how you have to fight them. Take any opening you can get.” Feeling exhausted, not wanting to feel the defeat that was welling up in his chest at his apparent weakness.

 He stepped back, wary of what Simba might attempt next. But the young lion didn’t make any move. He had stood while Scar was still struggling in the dirt and shook himself off.

"You've made your point," he said. "But Scar, I've been practicing. It's you who have been living with ease: lionesses hunting for you, hyenas following your every order. If anyone needs practice it's you."

 "Oh, I'll get my practice." He leapt with a growl, aiming for Simba's throat, and from his left he saw a flash of tan and yellow. He couldn't divert his move, he was there, his teeth bared, and Sarabi loomed in his peripheral.  Her skull knocked into his own, and bright sparks of light filled his vision. A heavy paw rested on his chest, just under the start of his mane.

"That is enough," she said. "I won't hear any more of this.  Scar, try anything else, and I will personally see to your exile.” She growled, her teeth flashing, and the glimmer there was even brighter, washing her out, so he could only feel the pressure of her paw against his chest, and the thrumming of his own heart, and it was easy to see Sarafina instead.

 The bao game had done nothing to wipe her from his mind. If anything the vision grew stronger Now she stood above him.  And the thought desperate, and rushed, unable to be staunch, came to him.

"Fi?" he said. Did he say it out loud?  He didn’t know. He couldn't stop himself. But as the light receded and dropped in intensity, and everything dissolved back to normal. He knew it was Sarabi, at that not more than a few second had passed.  Yet he couldn't be sure if he had said anything.  And he wondered if it hadn’t really been Sarafina.

 He looked at Sarabi, trying to see if he could see it her eyes, see the word there, and then realizing his situation, how weak he appeared, he let out a growl and pushed her from his chest. She stumbled backward.  Simba loomed inches from him.

 Scar took a step back, trying to avoid the maw of teeth. He raised a paw, but wavered, two Simba's swimming into his vision.  

"This is the last chance I will ever give you Scar," Simba said. "The last and I mean it. Either help us or leave. Scar could sense the other unspoken option, the one that would mean his death. The other lionesses  gathered around Sarabi and Simba. And he saw now that he had never had their support, never their loyalty. They had clung to him because he was a shadow of his brother.

What they had hoped to see in him was some semblance of the older king.  With a horrible sensation, he realized that all along it was Mufasa who had kept him in power, Mufasa who had kept him alive, Mufasa who had taken everything, who had given him everything, but not enough, not enough to thrive; only that connection had made him anything ever in their eyes.

The thought distant and all around him, and those irritating bites of stars that lingered in his vision, made him hateful, made him feel defeated, and combined together within him, so painful, that he dropped his head. Nala was more than dead.  He owed them no loyalty. He owned the nothing. Mufasa had seen to his power. His father had seen to his power before that. If not for them he would have been nothing. Weak, worthlesss. He would appeal to Shenzi at the cost of his life. He would offer the Pride Lands. He would offer Simba. Nothing was left there for him, but to see it wither and die. 


	22. Chapter 22

Scar listened from his ledge as Simba gathered the lionesses.

"We will move tomorrow. Scar has told us when the hyenas rest. They are the most vulnerable after a meal, and they scavenge early in the morning when the sun is just beginning to rise. Our goal is to reach Shenzi and offer our ultimatum: leave or be destroyed. There is no mercy for the death of our loved ones, for the loss of Sarafina, for the loss my father, for the loss of too many lions. They are cowardly. They will eat a lion when he is weak or sick, even when he is still alive. They lack compassion. They lack empathy. They are little more than death, and the state of the Pridelands when I returned was testament to that, but no more. After tomorrow that will all end.”

Scar slipped from the ledge, crawling down through rocks and detritus, burs and bracken catching in his fur. He dropped to the ground as Simba’s voice faded, and he cast his sight on the outlands. Shenzi wanted his attention? Well she had it. And she'd have Simba too. As he slinked away, the shadows cast by the sinking sun elongated and grew, shirking and twisting.

Shenzi's scent came to him like he had never been away. And as he approached the outskirts of the Pridelands, the scent of the hyenas grew stronger: blood and decay marking the start of their territory. A grave that gave refuge to a few living things. 

He jumped when his foot cracked an old bone, bits of dust and dried marrow filling the air, and he twisted around thinking he heard a similar crack somewhere in the distance. He ducked low, catching his breath, slowing his heartbeat, and crawled next to a massive ribcage where he ducked down and waited. It was situated so that he had a clear view from all angles. He listened, his ear twitching and tail thrashing, for the sound of any approaching hyenas. And then he heard it. Unmistakable, that idiotic laugh. The one who never talked but possessed this unnerving glint of knowing. He kept Scar on his toes. Ed, he thought, and trailing behind him, easily the dumbest of the three, Banzai. He stopped to scratch, making an unsightly display of his underbelly as he dug ferociously at his ear.

"Ed, these fleas are killing me. It’s like they've up and moved into my ear with all their extended family in tow. I just can't get it. I'll be scratching my brain soon."

  _If only_ , Scar thought . _That would solve one problem._

Ed let out a few disconcerting giggles, and then he stopped and turned, and his eyes fell to where Scar was ducking. His laughter grew and Scar saw him waggle a paw in his direction.

"What is it Ed? You hungry? Those are just a bunch of big ol' dumb elephant bones. Can't even get to the marrow they're so thick. Well maybe you could. But no normal hyena’s gonna be able to bite through those. You want real food?  Shenzi's been saying we’re going on a raid later. Then you'll get a big ol' juicy wildebeest. I’m slobbering already. Oh, man I can already taste it. Gonna be so juicy."

 Ed continued to waggle his paw.

 "Well, go and try then, I ain't stopping you.”

 Ed nodded and moved forward. Banzai would be easier to deal with. This idiot didn't even talk. He could remember Ed’s dead eyed stare just before Shenzi had ordered the whole pack to attack. Ed approached closer. He should make the first move. It was only these two, if worst came to worst, he could fight them. He didn't want Ed to run though, so he waited until he would be close enough to grab him if it looked like that might be his intention. He wanted Banzai closer as well. He shifted, upsetting the bone, and sending dust particles into the air. That caught his attention.

"Yeah, what is that Ed?" Banzai asked and trotted over. Just before Ed peered around the top of the spine, Scar stepped out.

"Ah, if isn’t Ed and Banzai," he crooned. Banzai dropped down into a position of defense, but Ed only let out a few giggles and then stepped back to be closer to Banzai.

"Scar, we wondered when we might see your smelly pelt again."

 “That's no way to talk to your king, now is it?" Scar said and stepped forward, his voice approaching the level of growl. He could see he had Banzai worried. The hyena took a step backwards but continued to hold his ground. He nudged Ed with his paw, but Scar blocked him before he was able to get away. "Now, you don’t want to be doing that. I just have a few questions for you. Nothing sinister. I've come with a warning."

 “A warning? What kind of warning? "Banzai said. “Ain't you supposed to be dead."

 "Me? Oh, no, no, no." He moved closer, showing his fangs, and Banzai dropped his tail, almost in a state of cowering. "Now tell me, when does Shenzi hunt?"

 "Sh-shenzi?"

 He blocked Ed with his foreleg as he attempted to move again. "Yes, Shenzi." _You dolt_.

 "She's never alone.”

“Well, she won't be alone if Ed is with her. You tell Ed to go get her and bring her here if you want to keep breathing."

 Banzai nodded, dropping his sight to the ground. And then in a defeated voice, he said, "You heard him, Ed. Bring her to the divide."

 Ed nodded vigorously, letting out a few laughs, and Scar unblocked his path. "Alone,” he said before Ed was out of hearing range.

 "She’ll be suspicious."

 "That's okay. You’ll be my collateral."

"Scar.” Banzai rubbed his foot against the ground, and Scar saw his eyes dart to the side and he moved just in time to block his path.

"Now, Banzai, I wouldn't do that. Patience," Scar said and looked over the barren bones and gray dirt of the graveyard. He could smell Banzai's fear. "Why so afraid, Banzai? It’s just me?"

Banzai let out a straggled laugh. "Yeah, Scar. Missed you too." He glanced in Scar's direction. "That name really fits you now." Banzai clasped a paw over his mouth.

 "What was that?" Scar asked.

 "Just well, you look different than before. I mean not different--well how do I put it, something- somethings off. I mean for the better, for the better."

 The idiot always did babble when afraid, Scar remembered. "Banzai," Scar said. "You look a little different as well."

 "I do?"

 “Not quite as flea bitten and mangy. A surplus of food, is there?"

 "Oh, you bet, ever since Sim- He looked to the ground and let out a few self-conscious chuckles. "Well, yeah."

 "You steal from the Pridelands?"

 "We weren't really ever officially banished. At least I don't think we were. Shenzi's always saying that. It's as much our land as it is the lions. More than enough for the two of us. Just last time it got out of control. Ate too much. Didn't let it come back before we ate again. You know...." his voice died away into a few hiccups of laughter.

"Shenzi's rationing then?"

 He caught her scent before he saw her. He narrowed his eyes, quickly scanning the horizon. He couldn't quite tell if she was alone, and he took a quick step closer to Banzai, one paw close enough to trip him up, giving him the angle to bite his throat to hold him hostage if need be. Hyenas were much more loyal than lions, she wouldn't sacrifice him.

 But when she came into a closer proximity he saw a jovial twinge to her sharp smile. "Scar, I wondered when we might be seeing your pelt around these parts. Hasn't been long enough, if you ask me." The smile didn't waver. "What brings your sorry carcass crawling back to us, oh Great King."

 How dare she mock him? He held back a growl. Later it would all pay off. Soon. He just had to keep it together a little longer.

"Shenzi, you have to start preparing now. Simba, will attack on the morn."

 She raised an eyebrow. "Is that so? And why are you letting me know this?" She took a step towards him. "You know what I think, Scar? I think you have no friends left. You've distanced yourself from the Pridelands. Gods know what you did this time, but it's not hard to guess. And you've coming crawling back to us.” She let out a laugh. "What did he call us again?"  

Ed stood by her back legs, slobbering and nodding his head enthusiastically.

"Shenzi, please, that was in the heat of the moment. It’s easy to get carried away. I’m an extending an olive branch. I've come with a warning."

 Which one of them had killed Sarafina? He had been too far away to get a clear glimpse and the scent around her body had been unfamiliar. There were hundreds of them. He had never learned each one by their specific scent and now he regretted that oversight.

 "And why should we trust you? You could very well be working with Simba to trap us.”

"And what reason would I have to work with him? Shenzi, you know nothing could ever turn me to his side. After all these years Shenzi, I know you know that to be true."

 "And Sarafina?"

 "You think I ever gave a damn about her!" the words were harsh in his own ears, and he quieted his voice, sitting back on his haunches.

Shenzi grinned. "Well, I knew it was only a matter of time before Simba turned you out. You're a hard character to work with Scar," she said.

 She paced back and forth, looking him up and down. "A little worse for wear. Though I'm surprised you survived your wounds. That you can walk after that bite to your leg. You favor that side now don't you." She moved to his left, and he instinctively felt the urge to shift to protect himself.

"You were always stubborn, bullheaded, and yet you had a passion to back that up. You took me in, and I speak for us all. We followed you, Scar, because we believed in you. But you betrayed us, pushed us aside so easily when the moment came to hold onto your precious power. I could see then in that moment that our alliance meant nothing to you. We possessed the force that you got into power and then we were a nuisance once you had it. And just like everything else, and everyone else, once you had what you wanted they became pointless. So, we were easy to cast aside, weren't we, when you saw your power slipping away and denouncing us was the only to hold onto it? I thank you Scar, because you taught me a lesson. To never trust something you eat.”

 "You were the ones who failed to kill Simba," he bit out. "You let him go. If you had done the job correctly we would all still be in the Pridelands. It was your incompetence that let him get away."

 "Are you done?" she asked. "If you wanted him dead, you should have done it yourself. You had him alone in the gorge and you couldn't finish him. You needed someone else to bloody their paws. I should have seen it then, a weakness, an inability to do what is needed.”

"You knew the plan, Shenzi. We agreed upon it," he said calmly. "No point arguing logistics now,” he said. “There are only hours left before Simba and the whole pride attack. I would think you should be grateful I chose to come to you.”

 Shenzi's tail twitched.

 "I can tell you precisely how they plan to attack, what route they will take, and how they plan to separate you from the pack. Oh what was it again that Simba said, hmmm, 'Drive them out or kill her.' Then again this must be an attack you've anticipated. Or did you just want my attention? Lions don't take kindly to be hunted."

Shenzi watched him closely, and he could tell that she was going over a few scenarios in her mind. Weighing outcomes against each other. Was it worth trusting him? "Ed," she said. "Up the guard. Scar," she said, and nodded, "come with us…"

He hesitated long enough that she noticed. "Mine is a word I keep," she said. He did his best to lessen the extent of his limp as he followed the three deeper into the outlands. He could hear the other hyenas, smell them but not see them, little trickles of laughter, a crack of a bone popping as agile feet flitted around them. Ed went ahead of the rest.

"Tell me, "she said as they walked,  "where do they plan to approach from?"

"From the east," he said. They'll use the mountains as their cover. They plan to attack while you're sleeping, an ambush after you’ve finished scavenging for the night.”

 He turned, a certain scent catching his interest. _Sarafina,_ he thought _. Why Sarafina? Why had she come here?_ He looked to where he had caught her scent, but the there was nothing, old and fading, but it told a story of the trip she had made back and forth from the Pridelands to the Outlands. Numerous trips judging by how he could still detect her scent. He watched Shenzi. He could snap her neck if he wanted. The other two would be on him, but if he could dispatch her quickly then he could deal with them, but he feared Ed. Banzai would be easy , but Ed was unpredictable. He couldn't even begin to fathom his movements or his approach and that made him hesitant.

This was the same path they had taken Sarafina on whatever business she had with them. _What had she been doing?_ The thought was beginning to madden him, and he was losing sight of what needed to be done. He snapped his head up when he heard Shenzi's voice.

"Scar, you in there?" she said. "That's their plan?"

"They plan to fight. They've been training. "

"Oh have they?"

 "Simba's sworn to see your throat in his jaws."

 "Hmph,” she snorted, "I'd like to see him try." But there wasn't a hint of pride in her voice. "I have the perfect thing for him,” she said with a low chuckle.  "We'll dig a hole."

 


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N Wow, probably never thought you would see me again or an update to this story,right?! I don't even know what to say. I've never forgotten this story or how much fun I had writing it and the wonderful feedback from all of you. I feel horrible leaving everyone on a cliffhanger. I owe you an ending. I'll be finishing this over the next couple of days. If you can remember what was happening, I hope you enjoy. I cross posted this story originally on FFN and realized I never posted chapter 23 on here. So to my AO3 exclusive readers, you benefit from my negligence and get two chatpers!**

 

 _Scar was gone. Good_ , Simba thought. He yawned and shook the need for sleep away. It was growing early in the morning, and he stepped out from his cave, casting his glance upward; still, the night was covered in clouds. They would fix that tonight and bring the light back to the night sky. The Kings would judge this action, and heal the Pridelands. They would return to bless the lands once again. Simba let out a sigh, feeling a strange sense of calm, something he hadn't felt since returning, and stretched his limbs.

It would be easy. The hyenas would be sated and rested, unexpecting. Once he had Shenzi the answer would come to him. He would know what to do.

"Father." He looked up hopefully. "Help me tonight. Help me to the do the right thing." He didn't wait for a reply. He looked back into the darkness of the cave where Nala still lay and then descended the great stone of Priderock.

He heard the rustling and movement of the others as they all came together at the base. And then silently they began to move in the direction of the outlands, angling their movement towards the cliffs that rested in the east.

Simba kept his gaze simultaneously between the darkened ground beneath him, and the starless night overhead, and moved swiftly at the front of the pride.

"Father," he whispered. "Is this the right thing? To seek revenge? To take back and stop the threat to your own?"

But then he thought of Nala: her gaze still resting on the wall, and Sarafina who they had laid to rest in the cave, and he didn't need to hear his father's voice to know that his conviction was just. But to kill Shenzi… Only as a last measure. He would give them all the opportunity to leave, and yet he could feel the heat of their breath on his back legs as he ran for his life. They had started the stampede. They had used Scar or he had used them. It didn't matter anymore. The truth didn't matter anymore; as long as he could make them leave, drive them out, as long as the Pridelands were safe once again, and his kingdom was free from the threat of invasion it didn't matter where it originated, only that it had. And Scar was gone, and the hyenas would be gone too soon. _Mere moments_ , he thoughts and the blood thrummed in his head so loud that he broke into a run, and he heard the padfalls of the pride before him as they charged towards the outlands.

"They've trained to attack low, to swipe paws away, to pair up: one fights, one guards."

"We'll attack from high up, then, " Shenzi said, a note of wariness still in her voice. Four hyenas dragged long rib bones from the spine of a nearby elephant. Two hyenas steadied the bone on either side, and a third bit it hard in the middle, splintering the bone, but not breaking it completely.

"That'll do," Shenzi said. "We have enough."

The hyenas had progressed with the plan rapidly. Working together so efficiently that Shenzi had barked a few orders and the plan had been completed within the hour.

"Scar, if I don't see them charging towards us..." Shenzi shook her head and pointed to the splintered bone. Ed let out a gleeful chorus of laughter.

The leaves and debris that the hyenas kicked over the bones hid them perfectly. In the darkness and the haste of battle Simba wouldn't see it. Scar marveled at the speed the hyenas had been able to complete their task. He looked at the sky and let out a little puff of air in indignation to see it covered in clouds. _Of course_ , he thought.

"Scar if you are lying to us, you'll be the first one in this hole."

He didn't say anything, but leaned forward listening, trying to catch any hint of the coming attack. "You'll attack from the east?" he said.

Shenzi nodded and then stepped forward, her expression changing.

She scented the air. Ed spun in an excited circle, giggling. Scar heard a growl, and then the whole graveyard was filled with the sound of fighting. Yowls and hisses, screaming laughs of hyenas, and growls. The fighting had started near the eastern border.

Shenzi looked around, confirming the position of the others. Most had climbed as high as they cold, finding large boulders, or bones that had been heaped into piles, and ascending as quickly as they could when they heard the start of the fight. The hyenas burrowed into the bones, vanishing as the clamor of the faraway battle grew louder. Moving bodies loomed in the darkness, moving fast, striking and pulling away, hyenas and then the lions twisting and batting, ducking low, fighting in pair, dispatching any hyena who saw fit to cling and bite. One swipe of a clawed paw knocking them away, and then switching offense to defense. So far no lion had broken through the front line that Shenzi had sent to the border, but Scar moved swiftly, adrenaline rushing through his body as he looked for Simba.

"You'll have to lure him," Shenzi said. "He wants you just as much as he wanted me. Maybe even more."

"No," Scar said. But he felt the hot breath of her guards on his ankles, and the snap of jaws, and he stepped forward.

"I don't see him," he said hating the desperation creeping into his voice. Claws threatened to slice his haunches and he took another step forward, furthering himself from Shenzi, moving away from his guaranteed safety. He couldn't outrun Simba.

"Not too far, Scar," Shenzi said. "Get his attention. Bring him here. Bring him to our surprise."

He narrowed his eyes, trying to see through the soupy darkness; dense outlines of trees in the distance he knew mostly from memory, the darkness hiding the blood and carnage of the battle occurring a quarter of a mile away. And then the cracking of bones, rhythmic, like paws running, and he saw a shift in he darkness a moment too late, a shape silhouetted, a darkness murkier than the night barreled towards him, claws stretched out wide, the body emerging from the blackness itself, and he turned, the specter landing inches from his back. It let out a deep roar that deafened Shenzi's orders and the rush of blood banging against his eardrums.

In his terror he lost sense of himself. It was Mufasa. Mufasa raised from the dead, and he steped back, almost too frightened to run, to do anything.

"Scar," he snapped his head up, and saw Shenzi still in position. The lion behind him curled its lips back from its teeth, a deep low growl coming from its throat.

 _Not Mufasa_ , he thought and turned, figuring the speed he would need to make it back to Shenzi before Simba caught him. Maybe, he could do it. If he put everything he had into it, and with a decisive motion he lifted his paw, catching Simba and raking him down the side with his claws.

The golden lion let out a great roar and turned.

"Scar," he hissed. His eyes still locked on Shenzi. He didn't move.

"Come on little prince," Scar hissed, not feeling the strength in his words and slashed out with his claws again. Simba responded, leaping out of the way, his claws drawn, and Scar saw where he needed to run. He watched Shenzi and he made to move, pushing off of his good foot and propelling himself forward. Simba roared and he felt bone chips pelting his muzzle as he ran; Simba mere inches from him. Shenzi cleared a path, stepping back away from the "surprise."

And they were right on the edge of the deep chasm. Scar could feel the emptiness beneath his front paw. His foot half on solid ground, the other treading in open air, and he pushed his front paws into the air, and his back feet found the ledge, and he pushed, and somehow he was in the air, suspended above the deep hole covered with debris and cracked bones. He had made it. He felt giddy, the air rushing through his mane, cool, light. He was young. He like he could do anything. Shenzi stood on the other side, her grin wide, maniacal. She stepped to the side, making room for his landing, and just as he could see the ground, just as he was about to dig his front claws into the solid earth, a deep tearing pain ripped through his haunches. Simba's claws sank deeply into his pelt, and he started to fall, nothing to catch his claws against. He reached out his paws desperately searching for anything to catch. And then he caught the side of the hole, and let out a roar as Simba's weight crashed through the barrier of bones and dirt and debris, and his claws raked through Scar's flesh as he fell.

Simba's roar of surprise was cut short as he hit the ground, and there was a horrible silence. Scar hung onto the ledge, blood running hot and thick down his hindquarter, and he struggled pushing his back legs against the hole, trying to pull himself up, but he couldn't find purchase. He hung uselessly. The ground was underneath his forelegs, his muzzle resting on the dirt above, and he inhaled the stale scent of old bones and decay.

"Shenzi," he hissed. "Shenzi." He couldn't see her. A paw came into his sight and stopped near his.

"I would say this has to be some form of justice," she laughed, and he heard the maniacal giggles of Ed somewhere before him.

"Shenzi," he hissed lowly. "Pull me up."

"Oh, Scar. I don't think I'll be doing that," she grinned, and stepped closer. "Looks like you have two options here. Ed?"

Ed stepped closer, his eyes lit with a killing brightness, and chuckled low, his breath stinking of old meat. He snapped at one of Scar's paws, and Scar let out a hiss, trying to scratch and claw at the muzzle before him, but he didn't have good enough leverage and couldn't reach him.

Ed only laughed. "Damn you, Shenzi," he hissed. And Ed snapped again. He tried to find purchase for his back foot, but his right leg didn't want to comply at all, and the burn in the muscle was crawling up his side. He didn't know how much longer he could hold on. He tried again, his paws sinking through the sand and grime. There was nothing: no trees grew here, no roots to dig his claws into.

"I can wait all day," Shenzi said, but he saw her eyes dart to the border. He had lost track of the fighting, but now when he listened he could still hear yowling, and growls, closer now, maybe. Simba didn't make a sound.

"Oh, what's this?" Banzai said, and stepped into his view. He snapped near one of Scar's ears. "Never thought I'd see you like this." Banzai laughed.

"Shenzi, " Scar said. "We were allies. I wouldn't do this to you."

"You've never cared for us. The whole time you were using us. We're loyal to a fault Scar, but once you've betrayed us, there's nothing you can do," she said. "Hang there all day."

His muscles were shaking. He shifted once more, but even if he tried to move or pull himself up, he knew it would be futile. He had exhausted himself with the first try, and barely made it past his ribs. They had widened the already deep chasm that lay beneath him swiftly. The fall wouldn't kill him, but he wouldn't be able to get back out.

"Maybe you and Simba can sort out your familial troubles down there." Shenzi laughed. She looked up and Scar heard the fighting and then someone shouting, "Simba!"

 _Sarabi_ , he thought. He felt relief course through his body. And then he closed his eyes for the briefest of moments. Shenzi's teeth sank into his paw. He lashed out with a surprised growl and the ground loosened under his paw. He slipped down, digging for purchase, trying to catch anything to stop his fall, his muscles protesting, and then there was nothing he could do. His body locked up, too exhausted from the fighting, too damaged, and he fell backward, twisting. He landed on his paws, but his leg buckled and he collapsed. An old sink hole, Shenzi had said. He looked up trying to figure out how far he had fallen. He had landed near Simba, his breathing low, the touch of his fur against his own, but he couldn't see him. Down here it was utterly black. He tried to peer up from where they had fallen, but he couldn't see anything. The night sky filled the hollow opening.


	24. Chapter 24

He heard the muffled sounds of battle above him, the dirt dampening it, making it small and insignificant. He had landed hard and each breath sent a jolt of pain down his side. The ground shifted, rattled, cracked, and he realized they had fallen into a pit of bones.

"Simba," he said. But there was no reply. He closed his eyes, though there was no difference in the darkness. He could hear Simba breathing, very quiet, and unevenly.

"Simba," he hated how weak and small the word sounded. But when he tried again, he couldn't even say it. He had to get out. He tried to stand, but he slid, his paws catching on the bones, some popped and cracked, others rolled and he scurried uselessly against him. He let out a little cry of frustration, and tried again, once again falling, his back leg burning and hot where Simba's claws had raked through the muscles.

"Simba, you insolent furball," he growled. "Get up. Get up you great idiotic oaf. Get up, you stupid fool. Stand up," he hissed. He tried again and his back paw slid out from under him and he hit his chin against the ground. The sound from above grew louder. They were fighting right above him.

"Where's Simba?" Sarabi shouted from above, her voice loud enough to break through the chaos; a great roar like a scream and then the sound of pebbles scurrying across old bone. Sarabi's words were cut short, by the thrashing and the barks of the hyenas.

"Sarabi," he shouted hoarsely.

Climb, he thought. He had to climb. He tried to find the wall, he had felt it on the way done. He stumbled through the darkness, limping with one paw extended until he caught it, a wall cut from stone. He pushed himself up, stretching out as far as he could, putting his weight tenderly on his back leg, and pushing himself up to his full height. It was a sheer rock wall, no purchase, no ledge to stand on, no way to pull himself upward. He dropped back down to all fours and stumbled over more of the bones, turning in circles. He caught Simba's scent again, oriented himself and limped back towards his nephew. He was still breathing, and inexplicably that knowledge calmed him enough that he could think. Where were they? And did the sink hole connect anywhere?

Scar drew his claws and slashed where he thought Simba's shoulder was. His paws sank through fur, and skin. "Get up now," he shouted. He was satisfied to hear a low moan from his nephew.

"Get up," he said. He nudged the lion with his head. He stood again, and his paw slid out from under his body, hissing he pushed himself back to his feet. He moved towards the wall again, and began following it's perimeter. It was smooth all the way around and just as he was about to give up, he reached a soft patch. He raised a paw, testing it and poked a claw towards it. It shifted and debris and dirt pelted his face. A great roar ripped through the darkness somewhere above them.

He pushed his weight against the wall and sputtered as more dirt fell. He blinked against it, rubbing a paw across his eyes. The bones behind him shifted, and a low groan filled the cavern, bouncing off the walls, magnified and unearthly, like the cry of something crawling out of the grave. Scar shook and looked to where Simba lay.

"Simba," he whispered. But there was no response, and he turned back to the wall, afraid that if he didn't get out soon the sound would return, would demand something of him that he wasn't willing to give - couldn't give. There were no answers.

The fear renewed his strength and he pushed harder against the barrier and then with a terrible deafening crack the dirt gave way and he stumbled backwards. Rocks and stones and bones came tumbling down, breaking and snapping, pelting and cutting through his fur. He coughed as the dust filled the cavern, making it hard to breath, and all of a sudden the sound of fighting above intensified as if he had opened a way back to it all. Something hit his back and he jumped, hissing as he slid on the bones underneath his paws.

He stepped back and came in contact with Simba, his foot pressing against his warm side. He felt movement there as he labored to breathe. As Scar looked forward, trying to peer through the darkness, trying to see if the falling debris had cleared a path, the fur and warmth against his leg shifted, moving away from him, and a deep angry roar deafened the cavern. Scar turned, feeling the movement of air near his face, knowing that he just avoided Simba's claws.

"Simba," he said. It's me." The form moved around, he could sense it, his fur standing up, catching the small eddies of air from Simba's erratic movement. He ducked, trying to make himself as small as possible. "You idiot, what are you doing?" he said softly, though he sensed the danger, and he shifted once more, knowing that if he were to raise his voice again he could give himself away.

Simba continued to move around him, but he didn't try to attack again, and he didn't speak. Was he looking for a way out? Scar wondered. The movement stopped near the area where he had dragged the wall down and he heard the horrible sound of the bone shifting under his paws. Small huffs of frustration reached Scar from Simba's direction.

"There's no way out," Simba muttered. Scar jumped as he dragged his claws down the wall. The fighting above them seemed to have quieted. Had the pride managed to push the hyena's back or had they been decimated. He marveled that no one else had fallen victim to the sink hole.

"Have to get out," Simba muttered and turned moving once again. "Have to find my way out. Have to stop them." The rushed monologue filled the cavern. Scar feared to give himself away, his fur bristling each time Simba passed him. Simba was unaware of his presence, moving like something possessed, some ghoul born in this pit of bones.

With each passing moment, his nephew grew a little more unhinged. He turned violently, the air of his passing brushing up against Scar's side. Kill him now, he thought. He won't know. You can feel where he's stepping kill him now. And just as the thought crossed his mind, he caught a scent that wrenched everything else away. Sarafina. He turned trying to locate it. Simba was digging through the debris and somehow that motion had brought the scent to him. Without regard for his actions, Scar stood.

"Move," he hissed. He pushed Simba. His nephew gasped. He knelt where Simba had dug. He was aware of his nephew moving away, his footfalls skittering. It wasn't the reaction he had suspected. Scar knelt down trying to find the scent once again.

"You smelled it?" he said. He dug through the bones, and there, he knelt. Down low it was old, he was surprised he had even caught it.

"Sc-Scar?" Simba said. "Where are we?"

"Shut up," he hissed. "Tell me, do you smell it? Sarafina?" Simba approached him, and Scar could smell the sharp scent of blood. How badly was he wounded? Fresh blood. He was bleeding and from the strength of the scent, badly.

"Where?" Simba stumbled into him, and his leg buckled under the weight. He hissed and struggled to hold them both up.

"Get off," he growled.

"Sorry," Simba muttered and pushed himself away, and Scar detected hurt in his voice. He didn't know where he was. "Uncle Scar?"

He repelled at the words, and pushed it away, telling himself at least he should be glad he wasn't trying to kill him anymore. He knelt down again trying to follow the scent, but it only grew fainter from the origin. It led to the wall of bones that Scar had pulled down into the cave. There was some purchase as he pushed his claws deep into the bones, underneath there were rocks that could support his weight. Simba stood close behind him.

Scar pushed himself forward, pulling himself up slowly, first one paw and then the other, digging and searching through the ones as they fell against him. He cursed and struggled. Simba whimpered not far behind him as he attempted to follow his movement.

He stumbled but managed to pull himself back up, but sunk low as he realized that he had reached level ground. Simba followed, haltingly behind him and Scar peered over the edge trying to see where the fighting had moved to. The area was silent and yet he could make out dark shapes. He pulled himself over the lip of torn ground and knelt low bones tumbled and crashed down below as Simba followed.

He crawled forward, keeping low, expecting an ambush. Simba was slow behind him. Scar could hear his labored breathing. The smell of blood was still strong.

"Scar," Simba said. He sounded scared, his voice wavering, and weak, and Scar wondered what was going through his mind.

"Quiet," he hissed. Trying to detect any specific scent, but other than the fresh pungent scent of blood there was little else. Clumps of fur were scattered around the area. He went to where Shenzi had been standing minutes before and peered down into the deep chasm into which they had fallen. It had been her plan all along, dispatch them, decimate the rest of the pride as well. Had she meant it to be a mass grave. Simba hadn't moved. He remained where he crouched and he mumbled low things in a voice that Scar could barely hear. Catechisms, pleas, hurried and fast, as if he sensed the end nearing.

Why had Sarafina's scent been with the hyenas? What had she been doing here? What business had she had with them? Scar narrowed his eyes and looked around the clearing. He knelt low trying to detect any other scent over blood. Mingled in there were Sarabi's, Shenzi's , banzai's, many, and not looking behind him, he followed because Shenzi knew why Sarafina had come. She had answers that he needed, and part of him couldn't fathom the risk he was putting himself in, but overriding that feeling was the need to know, to understand why she had gone to them.

The air grew warmer. He skirted a great pile of discarded bones.

A great crack of light dashed his vision and he hit the ground; hot breath smelling of blood and decay inches from his throat. He slashed out, catching the hyena cleanly in the side and batted him aside. He had entered a battle that had come to a standstill; on the verge of ending or starting.

Hyena's and lions stood in respective rows staring each other down. He made out Sarabi's form in the middle framed by the other lionesses. Shenzi stood across from them. Both of them were bleeding. Sarabi's ear was torn. Shenzi stood awkwardly, keeping weight off of her front paw. The hyena he hit whimpered and moved back into the line. Shenzi shifted her gaze in his direction and then she licked her lips and without warning, in a voice little above a whisper, she said, "attack." Sarabi nodded fast enough that the other lionesses leapt and fought, meeting the hyenas in midair.

He needed to know. He needed to get to Shenzi. He pushed forward, ducking and weaving between fighting bodies. Growls filled the night air, ringing in his ears. He stooped low, avoiding a hyena who leapt in his direction. A paw reached out and batted the hyena to the ground.

Shenzi, he thought. Where was Shenzi? She would have retreated. He scanned the field and avoided the onslaught of fangs and teeth. He ducked behind a pile of bones a bit off from the fighting, looking for Shenzi's limping form. She couldn't have gotten far. Had she succumbed?

The air smelled like blood, thick and heavy, and tufts of fur scattered the ground. It was impossible to scent anything. He narrowed his eyes and then with a burst of recognition he saw her. She was locked in battle. Her teeth around one of the lionesses necks and she didn't move or budge as the lioness struck at her, dragging her claws through the shorn coat on Shenzi's back. Scar moved swiftly, keeping her location in his mind. He slipped around the back of the pile of bones and slunk low to the ground, his belly sliding along the dirt and debris, sand and bits of bone snagging against his fur. The lioness slumped to the ground and Shenzi let go. She turned swiftly engaging another lioness.

They were being overwhelmed. Even with the training, the sheer number of the hyenas proved to be too much. Scar saw his opportunity; Shenzi had her back to him. He could see the three spots of darkened fur on her hindquarters, the perfect place to sink his claws. He readied himself, testing the ground under his feet, feeling the give and knowing just how much power he would have to put into his move to guarantee that he made it with one burst of energy. He couldn't afford to waste anything. His landing would need to be perfect, anything over or under could cost him his life.

He licked his muzzle, squatting low, figuring he would need to put more power into his left leg to compensate for the damage to his right one. Energy flowed through his body, his fur stood on edge. This is it, he thought with glee. I get Shenzi, and I'll know. And no other thought entered his mind. The fighting narrowed, pin-holing and he only saw her, her fangs and claws dragging through the fur of the lioness, Ed by her side. He readied himself, everything would come to a standstill if he got her; she could stop the battle, but he would get what he wanted first. He would get Shenzi's confession. Why had she killed Sarafina? And with a great roar he leapt, but somewhere in-between, maybe before he even left the ground, a small cackling erupted from behind him, and set of pinprick sharp teeth latched onto his leg, and he stumbled, falling into the middle of the fighting. He thrashed against the ground, fighting and clawing at the mass of fur latched to his foot. He was exposed. He tried to flip over to protect his underside, but the hyena on his leg had latched on so tightly that he didn't have the power to maneuver. He could see others encroaching, feel their hot breath, the same as before and he could almost feel the fire licking at his haunches.

"Let go," he hissed through his teeth and dug his claws deep into the hyenas back. The hyena squealed and his bite lessened. It proved just enough to kick him off and twisting, blood now running down his fur, he turned, trying to find Shenzi. He moved, ducking low as another hyena came his way. Scar knocked her to the side and moved forward through the writhing bodies.

Shenzi and three other hyenas stood around Sarabi, blood and spit dripping from her muzzle. Her side badly cut. She kept picking up her back leg, barely staying upright. The hyenas lunged forward, snapping and cackling. She scrambled, only just avoiding their teeth and claws. They're toying with her, he realized.

He ducked behind another pile of debris, this time checking carefully behind him. Most of the fighting had started to move back to where he had first encountered Shenzi. He pushed forward, just as Shenzi sprang towards Sarabi. He lunged, catching her inches from Sarabi's throat. They rolled in the dirt, bowled over his momentum. He vaguely registered the howling and growls of a battle behind him. He held Shenzi down, his front paws against her chest, and he bent low. She snapped at his muzzle.

"Now, Shenzi, that's no way to greet your King," he growled, the feeling deep and low in his chest and it took all of his power not to bite her throat.

"Scar," she hissed. Her eyes darted to the side.

"I wouldn't do that," he said seeing that she had been about to call out to the others. He pushed his paw tighter against her throat and she let out a hoarse gurgle, her backs legs clawing his underside. "Now, now Shenzi, you aren't going to try that again are you? I just have a few questions for you. Really easy ones, I promise. Though even that might tax you."

She was exhausted. He could see where sharp claws had slid through her flank. Tufts of hair were missing from her muzzle and neck, and a deep gouge still bled under her left eye. He didn't even feel his own wounds. He felt powerful, young, in control, and he leaned in closer, whispering slowly into her ear. Anger coursed through him with the trail of words, growing exponentially, everything else tunneled away. Just Shenzi and his paw against her throat, and every single answer he needed locked away within her mind.

Her eyes changed, real fear, he thought, and he let out a long low laugh. "Sarafina," he said, the word slithering from his tongue, heavy, metallic, he wanted her to taste it too, feel the malice, know the strange emotions it elicited in him that he couldn't put a name to. Dark and cracked and he pushed down harder not letting her answer, making her fight for breath under his paw. She squirmed, let out little whimpers of pain, even the contempt had slipped away under that fear and the patronizing pity he thought he saw from her sometimes nowhere to be found.

"Answer me," he hissed and lifted his paw just enough for her to breathe. He saw the answer on her lips, saw it and he leaned closer and just as he knew she would say it, she twisted violently and his claws sunk deep into her shoulder. She let out a cry of pain and then a high pitched choke-giggle. Relief he thought, with growing apprehension. Her eyes focued somewhere to his side, and before he could move, a deep pain ripped through him.

"Ed," she gasped and he stumbled to the side, giving her a chance to stand.

Ed, he thought. He reached out a staggering paw trying to claw at Ed. The hyena had latched onto his side right underneath his ribs, his teeth biting and ripping, tearing.

Scar howled, falling to the side, writhing in the dirt trying to kick him free. Shenzi neared him, her muzzle close to his face, watching him struggle. The pain was so much he couldn't find his words, darkness flooded his vision and he saw her in-between dark waves. Light crept into his vision, bringing the world back into focus for a moment, before it threatened to fade out again, and those teeth a constant ache in his side burrowing inwards towards his heart. His paws scrambled uselessly under him. Ed had bitten at the just the right spot, nowhere for him to catch with a paw, too far out of grasp of his teeth. He was weakening by the second and he gasped trying to draw breath, trying to find himself in the pain, to draw himself back together, to think, to fight them off.

"Shenzi," he gasped as she hovered into his vision, two of her. Not right, he thought. Somethings wrong. And Shenzi leaned ever closer, until she was almost touching his muzzle with her own.

"You wanted to know about Sarafina, Scar?" She said. "I didn't know you loved anything. But that wasn't true was it? There was one thing. All it took was a little deal. I wouldn't hurt Nala if Sarafina let us into the Pridelands, let us hunt during her guard duty, give us her kills. I'd let Nala live. I'd let you live, Scar. What did I care. You were in exile, injured, out of place, sure to die, what did it matter to me? But Sarafina didn't hunt enough, didn't bring us enough, didn't distract the other well enough and I knew the only way to feed my hyenas was to take back the land that had been ripped away from us.

"You killed her for that," he managed to hiss bits of dirt and sand entering his mouth, he panted against the pain, his mouth tasted like blood, like a fresh kill. He lifted his head, finding his anger somehow impotent and weak, finding that past his shoulder his body wouldn't respond. He couldn't turn enough to see Ed. There was a low crunching noise to his right, he didn't understand. Bones. Being broken. The sound of a kill being brought down, and Shenzi's muzzle swooped downwards and fell away when he found he couldn't keep his head up.

"She died for her pride, Scar," and he thought he heard softness in her tone. "Ed, that's enough," Shenzi said. Ed moved to stand next to her, blood coating his teeth, his muzzle.

"Scar," she said and stepped closer, bending down. "Looks like you did too." He couldn't read her expression, but there was no look of malice or triumph, almost sadness. Everything faded, his vision graying around the edges, the dark sand merging into one buzzing mass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And.......... another cliffhanger. Don't worry it will be short lived. The next chapter will be up tomorrow.


	25. Chapter 25

The buzz of pain and darkness gave way. A field of swaying grass materialized before him, whispers of wind pushing against his body.  He slashed out sensing Shenzi, but his claws parted the darkness like murky water. He looked up and the night sky blazed with light, sharp beams puncturing the sheet of darkness.

 _I'm dead_ , he thought and a small shiver of fear rose the hairs of his pelt. He sat up and found no pain, his back leg healed, the vision in his left eye clearer than it had been in years. The ground before him shimmered like water, the green tendrils of grass rising up and wrapping about his paws. Great shapes moved overhead blocking out the light - large translucent lions, their manes and legs outlined by the burning background of stars. A roar boomed so high and above him, that he ducked his head, trying to escape it but the grass manacled itself to his paws, wrapped and dug through his fur, tightening, and he pulled away, but the shackles only tightened.

 

"Scar, for that is what you call yourself, you will now face your judgment. The dead will speak for you or against you.” The voice spoke with the roar of a thousand lions, of a thousand dead kings and queens and lesser lions who died for their prides or lived to a ripe old age passing on surrounded by their loved ones and others cut down in their prime. He knew them at once, the knowledge flooding his mind, image upon image of lives, love, joy, death, blinding him for a moment with all they knew, all they felt, all they lost and loved, so he no longer knew himself. He felt them tear at him even as he came to know them, take and judge and pull things from him. When he thought he couldn't take anymore, when he would succumb, go mad, it stopped. He collapsed, panting against the dirt, the first aches of pain somewhere in his head.

"Where-" he choked, finding his tongue failing him. _No. No. Not now. He couldn't give in._ Not before these kings, this hallucination. Where was he? How had he gotten here? He dug into himself, finding strength that held another name; images of a young lion with his mane and clear eyes and no scars, sure of himself and his place and never in doubt or pain or humiliation.

"Where am I?" he said, but his voice was weak and mute compared to the baritone of voices that still seemed to ring, caught in the sky, and grass and trees, humming in his own fur and all around him.

"This is too much for you," the voices said. "We will make it easier." The dark starlit savanna warped, hissed and popped and ripped itself in half and funneled away into light. 

He stood in the savanna, the wind bristling his fur, the sky stretching far beyond - miles into the horizon - clear and blue, the sun high above, but neither too hot nor cold. He remembered fear, judgment, something holding him to the ground, but the thoughts dribbled away like a dream in the first harsh light.  He turned, scanning the field but it was empty. There was nothing but the swaying gold strands of grass and the scent of something sweet. The first sound to break away from the whistling of the wind and the drying cracking of the grass was the padfall of paws. Sarafina stood in front of him. Where had she been? He couldn't remember. It had been a long time since he'd seen her.

"Fi?" he said. Not sure why'd he said that. When had Sarafina become Fi again? But that sense of youth thrilled in his chest.

 "Taka," she nodded towards him, and then took a step that brought them into proximity, her nose inches from his. "Taka? Or are you Scar?"

 "What do you mean?" he said.

"Who are you?"

 "Fi, you know me," he said.

"I knew a lion named Taka and I knew a lion named Scar and they were different. One defined himself by his strengths and the other built himself upon his weaknesses and took his name from an act of violence. Which lion are you?" She circled him, her tail lashing.

 Her form shifted with a flicker of light and Mufasa's maw filled the space where hers had been moments before. Scar took a step back.  Again the lion’s form shifted. Ahadi wavered to life, shimmering and shifting, his paws kicking up golden dust and filling the air. It was as if the lion couldn't decide on its corporeal form.  Scar felt a deep hatred, not originating from within himself, but all around him, filling the air, and he knew the thing couldn't keep its form for all the rage that filled it. His world tunneled, the voices seething and writhing as they dissected him and saw his crimes. The thing morphed into his brother, bruised, and bloodied from a hundred antelope hooves, his bloody broken jaw hanging open exposing jagged teeth.

"Brother," he said.

 "You're dead," he whispered. His fur stood on end.  "I-" the words caught in his throat.

 "Admit your crime," Mufasa said and stepped closer. "Admit it to yourself,"

"No- I, brother," everything was fading, the sky stretching and tearing, deep gouges of bleeding sunlight filling the savanna. The ground rumbled under his paws and Mufasa stepped closer, his jaws open, narrowing towards his throat and he fell back catching himself. "No-I-I killed you," he said at last. The ground stopped rumbling long enough that he caught his balance.

The visage stopped, outlined in the morning sun, yet no shadow was cast against the phantom savanna. His brother's features softened. His eyes remained locked on Scar's and he felt that enmity burrowing through him. The contact between them seemed to exist in that gaze, some strange connection and his vision was filled with images, things he couldn't have possibly seen, emotions that he had never known until that moment washed through him, and he reeled, unable to comprehend the level of what was it? Similar to what he felt for Sarafina and Nala, but amplified, so much louder, beating in his head.

Simba being born, his pink mouth opening and taking his first breath, learning to walk, stumbling standing, an overwhelming sense of pride as Simba looked over the Pridelands and then fear. He gasped pulling in on himself, dropping to the ground, Simba in the gorge. He couldn’t breathe. He gasped a sharp pain digging through his side. All the world was red, hooves, and dirt, and no air, the pounding of their feet so close to his head, pain racking his body, and Simba hanging from the branch, his feet kicking uselessly in the open air.  A flash of darkness, a dark mane in his periphery.

"No," Scar moaned. "I don't want to see. I know how it ends." The images if anything became more tumultuous. And he saw himself from Mufasa's perspective, his eyes burning green, otherworldly in the noon light and pain coursed through his paws where his brother's claws dug into his flesh.  Simba would die. Simba would die. _My son. My son. Kings, help my Son._

Scar awoke panting, blood in his mouth.  Great shadows fought above him, roars and cries, and through the haze in his vision a lithe figure moved.

"Sarafina," he said and his head slumped against the dirt of the elephant graveyard. The word was lost in the sound of battle. His memories were weak, confused. He tried to stand but his body wouldn't respond. The lions changed form before his eyes, sliding into his brother’s form, his red mane somehow bright in the darkness and he slashed at the hyenas that treaded close. Some time passed and he opened his eyes. A pair of paws filled his vision. He looked up, seeing the slim outline of a lioness. "Fi," he said.

But she didn't respond and he followed her line of vision to the line of hyenas that stood a few feet from them. Blood dripped from a jagged cut to her shoulder and splattered close to Scar's front paw.

"Dispose of him," Shenzi said. "Then and only then will I consider what you have to say. He's as good as dead anyway. Not even your monkey can heal that wound. Best to put him out his misery."

 "Fi," he whispered again, trying to crane his head, trying to make out the features of his savior.

"What's he saying?" Banzai said.

 The hyenas words came to him muffled, like cattail fluff filled his ears, and he tried once again to find purchase. His front legs shook and slowly he found he could move his toes, though his legs remained numb. His head was half full of fluff too. He couldn't remember how he'd gotten into this predicament. But he felt warmth without reason at the idea that Sarafina stood above him, and the oddest idea that he had lost her somehow. "You came back,” he said against the dirt.

"He's lost his mind," Shenzi growled.

"There has been too much loss, Shenzi,” Sarafina said above him.

"We have nowhere to go."

 "You can't expect me-" her voice broke and she took a step forward, her fur brushing lightly against Scar’s side. "After what you did-” She faltered. Why, why did you bring her into this?"

His vision began to clear a bit and his heart dropped because he remembered what had happened to Sarafina. He pictured the cave that her body rested in. His head spun because it if wasn’t Sarafina that stood above him then it could only be Nala.

"Nala,” he said with a gasp and she turned and that's when he saw Shenzi’s eyes flick towards Ed, her teeth flash in a silent signal and Ed silent this time, moved. A strength coursed through his body and he pushed himself up from the hard gray dirt and caught Ed just before his teeth snapped over Nala's throat. She turned with a surprise gasp. Scar rolled in the dirt and didn’t feel any pain, his teeth closing around Ed's leg, but the hyena had his jaws around his throat. He couldn't breathe. He saw Nala from the corner of his eye. Everything dimmed, that drumbeat once again filling the void, sending out a golden ray of light with each beat. It grew so loud and intense that he thought his eardrums would burst.

 

Simba shook his head, clearing his vision and the blood that had run into his eyes. Ed's body lay close by. He couldn't remember what had happened after running towards Scar. He remembered falling, but everything in between was a blur of darkness and confusion. He had awoken to a roar he recognized but couldn't believe and there was Nala standing next to his mother. They were fighting driving the hyenas back.  He joined them and the rest of the pride rallied, fighting and pushing the hyenas back. "I'm okay," she nodded and gave an exhausted smile and he didn’t' know if she looked okay, but for now he was overjoyed. She was back. He didn't think he would ever speak to her again and he felt like he could fight. That they would win. She smiled at him. "We can do this."

 But then Shenzi had brought the rear troop to the front and the battle turned once again.

 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

The sky was dim, not like last time, not accusatory in its brightness, and he found he could open his eyes without pain.

"This is it then," he said to the darkness, and his words echoed strangely above him.

“Scar.”

He recognized her voice.

 "Fi."

 “So many years since you've called me that," she said and materialized out of the darkness. He moved with strength he hadn't felt in years and then stopped in front of her suddenly aware of what a spectacle he had just made of himself.

 "Still self-conscious even in death?" She said and laughed. "You always tried to cultivate such an image of discipline. Here you don’t have to be inhibited."

 

"And where is here?" He said but he couldn’t keep the happiness from his voice. "I didn't think I’d ever see you again.'

 "Scar, I'd liked to call you Taka. I think you answered your own question."

 "I’m dead?"  

 "Not quite, somewhere in-between."

 "Then you must be too."

 "I'm afraid not.

 "Earlier-”he tried to recall the memory, but he wasn’t sure what to call it. The vision of his brother? "I saw Mufasa. At least I think I did. More- I - it sounds ridiculous, idiotic, something a cub would say-"

 "No need to rationalize here, Scar. You'll find things are not the same here.”

"I felt him," he said. "Rage, fear, hatred. I saw what he saw."

 "Something new was it?" She said with that slightly askance smile that he remembered so wall. "To gain another's perspective, hmm?  What gave you your logic took from you any form of empathy."

 "What of it?" he said.

 "It's not entirely true though."

 "You found even some without the help of your brother. In our daughter. In Nala."

 "She 's okay, Fi. I saw her. At least-” He felt a sudden panic.

 "I have to go back." He whirled around peering into the darkness that had since come to surround them.

"It's almost too late, now," she said. "I was sent to retrieve you. To bring you to the Kings."

 "To stand judgement?" he said.

 "Yes, but don’t be so afraid."

“I have to get back.” He took a step back, his foot touching the darkness and suddenly he was colder than he had ever been in is life.

 "No, Scar, don’t go that way. I can't come with you if you go that way. "

 "I can't leave her, Fi. I can't leave her now that's she back."

 

And Sarafina stopped, her eyes wide. "You-you’re right. But I can't guarantee what will happen. It will be more pain. "

 "When hasn’t it been," he said and then hated the sarcasm in is voice. "Why, just tell me why? Why did you go to graveyard? Why did you confront the hyenas on your own?"

 "I had too, she said weakly. To protect Nala, to-to protect you, to protect he Pride."

 "But why alone?"

 “It was something I needed to do. Something I needed to see right by."

 "Then you understand that this is what I have to do."

 "I'll take you back but I can't cross the barrier with you. I can only go so far.”

 They moved through the darkness, Sarafina's body soaking heat into his own. It was as if she was the one still alive and he was the one dead for how cold he had grown. He could only see from the faint light that glowed around her body. "Will I ever see you again?" he said and his voice echoed strangely in the darkness, weak and yet seeming to fill everything.

"It is hard to say how the Kings will judge any of our actions."

They stopped, the darkness parted and he could see the fighting, feel it reverberate up through his paws.

"Keep her safe, please keep her safe, Taka.”

For the second time, he awoke.

 


	26. Chapter 26

He swiped a paw through the murky haze and knocked a hyena from Nala's back. As dawn rose and the sun began to color the sky purple and orange, the battle slowed. Scar did what he could to support Nala as she and the other lionesses pushed back against the force of the hyenas.  Warmth bloomed through his body as he watched his daughter, even as he felt the crippling wounds he had endured. Felt himself teetering once again on the edge of nothingness, but he couldn’t give in. He caught a hyena that tried to attack Nala from behind and batted it away, his claws sinking into its haunches until it retreated. Simba fought on her other side, Sarabi next to him and they pushed the hyenas back until they reached the cliff face on the eastern side where the battle had first begun. The lionesses lined up in a row, the hyenas had their tails to the cliff.

Shenzi stepped forward, her ear badly torn, her pelt covered in scratches. On either side their ranks were thin and full of holes where their compatriots had once stood.

 "Stop,” She said. "Stop.” She looked at her pack. "No more.”

"We can't live like this anymore," Nala said stepping forward, “not in fear of each other, not in fear of death and repercussions and retaliations."

Shenzi looked to her right: Ed was dead, Banzai nowhere to be seen. "You've killed my family."

 "And you've killed mine," Nala said her voice not wavering. Scar watched her. Her strength somehow intact, even thought he was sure she was beyond exhaustion. "This stops now. This stops today.” Simba came to stand by her side. “No more bloodshed.”

 "And that means what?" Shenzi asked. “We’re banished? Left to die in the outlands?"

"There are events I can never forgive, but I will not perpetuate this cycle anymore."

Shenzi stepped forward to meet Nala. Both sides shifted with apprehension.  Bodies were strewn about.  A small breeze coming off of the savanna ruffled their fur. Scar didn't know how he was standing. Whatever reserve of strength that was left in him kept him standing watching to see if Shenzi would try anything, but his senses were so dulled he doubted he would be able to intervene in any way. Simba looked worse for wear and also seemed like he wouldn’t be much help in a fight.

 He tried with his dulled faculties to think of a quick maneuver if it were t co me to that. But Shenzi, her back leg slightly mangled as if one of the lionesses had clamped down on it hand thrown her, limped to the front. Her head still held high, her muzzle slashed and torn and blood dripping from her jaw. In the back a few injured hyenas hunkered down. The least injured standing in front as if to protect them, but none had gone unscathed. Blood mixed with the dry soil on both sides.  The surrounding area seemed to fade and reappear with each intake of breath, with every beat of his heart, and he wondered if this would be it: If this had been his life, if it the end it had meant anything? Had enough blood been shed to equal the loss of Sarafina? Would anything ever make her death less painful? if there was anything left in him he would kill Shenzi. He would destroy her. He was close enough to Nala he could see her stance, how her back leg shook as if she were in great pain, as if the stupor she had just come out of still lingered in her mind and the effects of having been in such a state for weeks had drained some of her strength away, rendered her weaker than she normally would have been and yet she was still so strong and that was where Sarafina resided now - in their daughter, because surely there was nothing of him in her. If it couldn’t be him in charge then let it be her. He would do with what little strength was left in him to protect her, to support her, to make what she saw fit to be a reality - not that she needed him, but if she would have him he would stay; he would do what he could to make up for his transgressions, but he doubted that she would fight for him, not after what Simba had brought to light in the past. He would have used his actions to prove a point, to show them that he was worth keeping around, that he could be redeemable and if they weren't as cruel, as sociopathic as he, they would let him stay because they wouldn't allow themselves to sink to such a level. It was against their morals and that was what had always made him strong in the past. His lack of morals had given him the advantage, and yet now his reason was completely different. There was strange thought that if he could protect her, if he could help her that was all that really mattered. He had never thought he would care for something outside of himself, but there was an ache in his chest when he thought of his daughter, a desire to do anything for her. Not for Simba, no, but for her he would make sure her kingdom wouldn't fall.

He watched Shenzi: she moved like someone who had been defeated, her legs shaking, her muzzle dripping blood onto the ground, and he suspected that without what was keeping him standing: some sort of battle adrenaline she too would drop. Her pack flanked her on either side.

"There has been great loss on both sides.” Nala’s voice rose despite the perceptible shake in it, her mental and physical exhaustion evident. "My mother was killed here and part of your pack is dead now as well. My lions are worn and we are all injured. We could fight until the very end, but I don't know what would be left of us. What would be the point but to create more bones for this place? I was locked in the darkness for a while, the death of my mother took me to a place I couldn’t process and I fell into my own mind and a mire as deep as the mud pits that I couldn’t find my way out of it. I let the pride down when I should have been the leader they needed. I was sulking. I was locked in my own grief and in there I confronted everything that had gone before and the two lions who have made me who I am. Even if I didn’t want to know, I can't put my head in he sand and pretend it isn't the truth. What I believe is that we can change - that a dark and corrupted heart is dark and corrupted for a reason - that hunger or pain or jealousy or something you were born with can define you  but it doesn’t have to. 

“You can break away from where you came from or from what you are perceived as being. And I know there is a reason for what you've done, for everything that has separated us for years and years. We have segregated you to this land and pushed you towards the acts we have committed against each other. Shenzi, I know now your actions were in direct retaliation to how our pride has treated you. I have heard of time when it wasn't always this way. When we worked together, and I offer you the chance, rather I'd like us to come to an agreement because there is no victory here today. There is only death and bloodshed and there will only be more if we continue in the same way we have.  We need to break free from what has come before us and move forward in a new direction.”

 Simba cast a quick worried glance across the savanna and Scar couldn’t quite read his expression, but there seemed to be a part of him that didn't agree with Nala. He stepped forward as if to say something - maybe to contradict her because it had always been Mufasa's policy to never work with the hyenas. He had played a large role in keeping them in their place, not that Ahadi had been particularly receptive of them either. He always thought the rift had grown stronger because of the relation that Scar had cultivated with them.

He saw himself as an outsider and they were too. It wasn’t difficult to strike up a conversation when he had slipped through into the elephant graveyard years ago, leaving behind his bright companions. It wasn't even a place that Sarafina would follow him. It had been a territory he had had claimed for himself completely on his own. It had been his own downfall that he had made such a partnership on his own. If he could have brought them together, maybe he could have created a kingdom that hadn't fallen to their glut. If there hadn't been a reason for them to act in such a way, if they hadn’t been cut off from the food supplies, if they hadn't formed their own small communities instead, maybe things would have been different. They should have worked together and all the better if Simba found it an unlikely cause.

 "There will have to be forgiveness on both sides for it to work, but we will lift our regulations on our borders if you will allow us to reclaim this land. We will set up hunting schedules so as not to deplete the land and to hopefully over time bring life back to this area as well. It was cruel of us to claim the best land as our own and consign you to an area that was depleted in resources. All along we should have been working together. There were a few confused roars and voices from the back and Nala turned to cast her gaze above them.

She waited and she meant for them to voice themselves, it wasn't only rhetorical, even though her fur bristled. We are all tired of the bloodshed and the feud and the fear it creates, why couldn’t we live in peace?"

The murmuring from behind her dropped away.

 "It's true. I'm tired of fearing for my cubs," one of the lionesses said. "I'm tired and saddened to think what might happen if I allow them out of my sight for one moment. But how can we trust these mongrels?”

The hyenas growled and whined behind Shenzi. "If we are to get along, we can’t speak of each other in such terms. We must bridge the gap. Tonight I suggest we return to our respective camps, we treat our wounded and there is a vast number and then we move forward with discussions tomorrow - on equal terms. We come to an agreement that suits us both. We find a way to work together. What do you say Shenzi?"

Shenzi turned her head slightly as if taking in her pack. Her fighters bloodied and injured, their tails drooping, their ears low against their heads.

 "I will meet with you in the morning," she said. "But only you." Simba moved to step forward, to protest, but Nala looked at him, murmured something Scar couldn’t hear and he stepped back, a low growl still in his throat, letting her know that he wasn't happy with this arrangement.

"Very well," Nala said. "At dawn we'll meet at the border."

The fight ended as abruptly as it had started as the parties broke away, a few roars and growls as they passed by each other but no one drew their claws or barred heir fangs, mostly they kept their heads down, exhaustion and injury taking the verve from them. Lionesses brushed past Scar and he wavered on his feet, blood dripped from his side ran through his fur and mixed with the dusty earth. His vision wavered. There was a light rain falling and it dripped from his snout onto the ground. Simba looked back at him with lowered features, his tail lashed through the dirt, but there was still a slightly dazed pained expression across his features.

Scar thought he might fall, blood ran through his fur from the grievous wound to his side that he thought was probably fatal. The sound of his bones snapping under Ed's teeth still echoed in his ears. He thought if he lived it would be something that would haunt him at night; the pain and the sound and the strange fear that had run through him; a fear almost not for himself, but for what would become of his daughter locked in her mind, stuck in the cave. It seemed like maybe that had been enough to call her forth. She had appeared there fighting over him, pulling Ed away from his side. She had saved him when he deserved nothing of the kind. She had leapt in when she had the chance to be rid of him forever: the murderer, the outcast, the father she had never wanted and he had never cultivated a relationship with her either; never wanted to know her because of her closeness with his brother's child. Because of all the goodness he perceived in her, just how much she was like Sarafina, he couldn’t stand it. And now once again she was standing next to him, a reversal of the when he’d stood by her side after they found Sarafina’s body.

"Don’t,” he said but he didn't know for once why he was saying it, what part of him or for what purpose other than he didn’t think she should get her coat any dirtier. That he didn't deserve what she had given him - that he didn't deserve the chance at life she had given him.

He faltered, his paw slipping out from under him but instead of falling to the ground, she caught his body against hers. "I saw what you did earlier,” she said. “I saw how you fought for us."

He didn't say anything, just stood there leaning against her, remembering how before it had been as if Sarafina was standing before him. It had been Sarafina hadn’t it?  He’d spoken with her. He could feel himself fading, his consciousness along with the blood dripping from his side and spattering against their paws. Sarafina’s words echoed in his mind, "Look after her. If you must go back, look after her. Keep her safe.”

 If he was too live it would be for her. He would put everything he had into seeing that her plan would succeed because his own ambitions no longer mattered. He felt before the darkness washed over him something he didn’t' understand, something he'd never felt before: a contentment, a knowledge that in this he would succeed. For once in his life his plan would come to fruition.  He heard Nala saying his name, but he couldn’t truly make out her words. The desolate scenery spun about him, only that small contact between them keeping him rooted as they walked slowly away from the battleground and back to Pride Rock.

 

The negotiation began the next day. Nala was flanked by a few of the pride. Sarabi with a torn ear and a bloodied flank but otherwise uninjured stood by her side. Shenzi arrived with a few of her bloodied pack mates, Banzai by her side looking worse for wear.

"We really did a number on each other," Shenzi said looking over the lionesses. There was a tense air between them.

Simba didn't know what to think, he'd tried to discuss the matter with Nala the night before, and he’d been surprised by how strongly she held to her belief. But thinking of his uncle it wasn't conviction that part of the family lacked. He could agree that something different needed to be done though. They were both different lions now, changed by what they had experienced in between their cubhood and the lions they had grown into. He could understand now that it wouldn't be as simple as coming back together and expecting everything to be the same. No, they would have to grow to know each other again. The first step he needed to take was trusting her. He would even if that meant supporting her with her plan: to trust them again, to give them part of the Pridelands, to setup a hunting schedule that they would both work to maintain, to have weekly meetings where they would go over the terms and make sure it was still working. It was a small truce that would hopefully build, that was what Nala had said.

They hadn’t discussed Scar. She said they would after he recovered and Simba hadn’t had the energy to argue - his head aching, his body bruised. Rafiki had pronounced that Simba would be just fine. He'd cracked his skull, and even when he said some of his memories were hazy the mandrill hadn’t seemed too bothered.

 "They'll come back or they won't, but they are in the past.”

 Simba tried not to read anymore into his words but thought he was probably prodding him to look forward - to let the past rest. Ever since he'd returned it was where he'd been turned - the anxiety he'd felt since stepping on Pride Rock, since seeing Scar return - the thought that he wasn’t fit to rule - that he didn't belong here - that those were the things he should put aside - it was those hazy thoughts that followed him into sleep the night after the battle. In the morning he had a clearer perceptive. There might very well be some truth in Rafiki’s statement, even if the Mandrill had only been telling him something mundane. It was a new direction and he was ready for something different. It would be slow - this truce, the hyenas had always been a nuisance, and he feared their capacity for evil, for their connection to his uncle, and he stood warily next to Nala as she spoke, her coat shining in the midday sun her eyes vibrant and alive.  

 

Scar stood at the edge of the Pridelands looking out over the empty savanna. He hadn’t made contact with the hyenas. He’d never trust them again, not after how they'd betrayed each other. He'd watched Nala negotiate with them, afraid for what might come of it. He knew how they could turn, how they were fickle in their companionship to anyone outside of their own kind, and yet she seemed to have a grasp on what was going on.

The mandrill had saved his life. _Again_ , he thought. He owed so many debts. His fur bristled when he thought of it. He didn't like being in the open, but he didn’t like being with the pride either, nor with the hyenas. He was still the outcast and yet to be there for Nala made everything worthwhile.

He watched her race across the savanna, her lithe form pushing through the savanna grass as if it were water. When he'd first awoken after being lost in some twilight haze for so many moons, he’d awoken in the dark. He’d heard Sarafina - but no it had to be Nala - and he cast his gaze upwards, craning his neck to see where she was. In the black expanse of the night, there’d been a single star, a pinprick of light in an otherwise cloud covered night. "Fi," he’d said and closed his eyes. If the kings weren't there for him at least she was.

Nala stopped in front of him. "I thought we might play a game of Bao," she said. She'd told him she'd heard everything he said when she was in the cave. It was if she’d been lost in some place she couldn’t get away from. She could think and hear but not move; her grief so deep that it enervated her limbs, made every notion seem useless and every reason to get up and move pointless. She'd wanted nothing for herself or anyone in those few weeks.  But in her dreams, in her twilight state, Sarafina had come to her, had urged her to get up, to live for herself, to use her grief to her advantage, to not let anymore bloodshed come to this land - so much waste - so much violence and discord, but why did it have to be that way? Why continue it? Why not change it, and she'd felt herself come back to life. She’d rushed towards the sound of battle.

"You remember how to play?" he asked looking at her, recalling his failed attempt to teach her Bao. He tried to take in her expression but she was as hard to read as anyone he'd ever known.

 "Yes, I lost but for some reason I feel like you had a bit of an advantage. “ She gave him a wry smile and turned away and gestured for him to follow her. "You said Sarafina was the better player between you, and well I hope to take after her."

 "I hope you to do too," he said. He hadn't meant it to sound so melancholy. She turned to look at him. "I mean it," he said.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you believe I finished this? I started this back in 2014 and I'm ashamed it took me this long to write the ending. I've appreciated all the kind and encouraging comments you've left me during the time when I wasn't writing. It inspired me to finish this up. Thank you for giving me the drive to finish this and I hope the ending is adequate. I could see myself maybe one day writing a sequel. I have a few ideas for a new direction. Anyway thank you to anyone who is still following this story and to anyone who started reading after this was finished I hope you found it enjoyable. It's a story I've always wanted to write. Scar has stayed with me since I first saw the movie in 1994 and now at least in my mind and in this story he gets a second chance.


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